World champion Price reaches quarter-finals at the Darts World Cup

Mith his best appearance so far at the Darts World Cup, World Champion Gerwyn Price has reached the quarter-finals. The 36-year-old Welshman defeated the Dutchman Dirk van Duijvenbode 4-1 on Wednesday evening and showed a strong performance after a 0-1 deficit. Price had had some problems in the two previous games against the Englishman Ritchie Edhouse (3: 1) and Belgium’s Kim Huybrechts (4: 3) and was now acting sovereign and dominant for the first time.

Van Duijvenbode, who works on an aubergine farm and is therefore known by the nickname “Aubergine King”, missed making it to the quarter-finals of the World Cup like last year. The top-seeded price is considered a big tournament favorite and will now face the Englishman Michael Smith in the round of the last eight on New Years. This defeated the Welsh co-favorite Jonny Clayton 4: 3 in a high-class game. Clayton won four major tournaments in 2021, more than any other darts professional.

Price had spoken out in favor of canceling the title fights in the afternoon because of the numerous corona cases at the World Cup. “The tournament should be postponed,” he wrote on Instagram. While this is probably not the best option, “it is an option that I would agree with”. The world association PDC has so far not announced anything in this direction.

In London’s “Ally Pally” the disaster announced by the mayor looks like this: 3,000 darts fans shout their songs loudly in a small hall, drink a lot of beer and organize a party that was normal and harmless before the corona pandemic. At the World Cup, the world association PDC is making every effort not to exceed the minimum standards of the already lax British government in times of the Omikron variant. And with the positive test by star Michael van Gerwen, the organizers are now threatened with great chaos at player level.

Van Gerwen said he was “really disappointed, confused, angry with how my World Cup ends. I would never have expected this result. ”His two compatriots Vincent van der Voort and Raymond van Barneveld had only tested positive the previous day. So the finding did not come out of nowhere. The World Cup tournament is currently acting like a big lottery. On Wednesday it caught the Englishman Dave Chisnall, who was in the semifinals last year. Like van Gerwen, he is eliminated without a fight, instead England’s Luke Humphires receives a bye for the round of 16.