Michael van Gerwen won the Nordic Masters darts tournament in Copenhagen on Saturday. He beat former world champion Luke Humphries in the final. It is the second World Series title for the Vlijmen native this year.
Van Gerwen started the tournament with a victory over the Swede Oskar Lukasiak and then also defeated his compatriot Viktor Tingström. In that game he made up for a 5-3 deficit.
In the semi-finals, the Vlijmen native impressed with a nice win over man in form Jonny Clayton. He put that aside 7-4, with an average of 101.55.
Why is this overall victory so important for Michael van Gerwen?
The final started badly for ‘Mighty Mike’. He fell behind 3-1 after two twelve-darters from Humphries, but fought back to 5-5. In the decisive lay Humphries missed a match arrow on the bullseye, after which Van Gerwen finished the game coolly.
“It was a really tough match,” said ‘MVG’ after the match. “Luke had the chance to lead 4-1 and 5-2.” In any case, he felt that he had not started the tournament in Copenhagen well. “But what is more important is the way I came back from behind in those games and kept going.”
That offers him hope for the future, because Van Gerwen is not yet having a great year. He has not yet won any major tournaments and despite some great performances, he missed the Final Four of the Premier League, a competition between the best eight darts players of the PDC association. “Winning tournaments is the only medicine to get better.”
Van Gerwen is the first darts player to win the Nordic Darts Masters twice.