Darts: Michael Unterbuchner surprises as the best German in Barnsley

As of 10:03 p.m | Reading time: 3 minutes

Er seemed unstoppable. After losing the first two legs against José de Sousa, Michael Unterbuchner took off. 1: 2, 2: 2, 3: 2, 4: 2, 5: 2 – no round lasted more than five shots. The 33-year-old from Landsberg am Lech was about to achieve his greatest success on the Pro Tour of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).

In the end – as so often – only one dart was missing. Unterbuchner missed his first round of 16 at Players Championship 11 in Barnsley. The lead against the Portuguese, after all number seven in the world rankings, could not be brought to the finish line. Unterbuchner missed his match dart on the double 20 when the score was 5:4 and lost 5:6.

Annoying, although he was the best of the six Germans with his entry into the third round on Sunday. The 6-4 start against Kevin Doets was followed by a 6-1 win over Madars Razma by Unterbuchner, who is often absent from the tour due to work commitments and is likely to lose his tour card at the end of the year. The Bavarian, who had reached the World Cup semi-finals at the BDO in 2018 and 2019, played an average of 96.72 against the Latvian after the 92.33 at the start.

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Martin Schindler had to settle for the second round this time. The 25-year-old started furiously with a 6:0 (average 107.36). George Killington, who took Michael Unterbuchner out of the tournament 6:5 on Saturday, had no chance. “The Wall” also kept the scoring high in his match, ended up with an average of 106.75 points, but still had to congratulate youngster Josh Rock (101.64) on his victory. A double rate of 27 percent and poor timing cost the win in the high-class game.

For the German number one there was no further prize money at all after reaching the round of 16 on Saturday. Gabriel Clemens lost 5-6 to “Diamond” Ian White despite a 15-point higher average of points per shot (108.13: 93.14).

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More first-round bankruptcies for Hempel

The other three Germans were also eliminated in the first round on Sunday. Max Hopp lost 4:6 against Jermaine Wattimena from the Netherlands. Ricardo Pietreczko, after an initially successful race to catch up, lost three legs in a row to Wattimena’s compatriot Maik Kuivenhoven (5:6).

Florian Hempel missed numerous chances against Matt Campell, as documented by his doubles quota of 25 percent, and lost 4:6. After the 5:6 against James Wade on Friday and another narrow opening defeat against Nathan Aspinall (5:6), the man from Cologne remained without a win on Sunday.

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And the tournament win? After the event on Friday, with the final victory of 19-year-old Danny Jansen over veteran Andrew Gilding, had produced perhaps the greatest darts sensations of recent years and on Saturday Michael van Gerwen had added another title to his strong year 2022, a man triumphed on Sunday from the second row.

Ryan Searle won his third PDC title. After the English were among themselves in the semi-finals with him, Dave Chisnall, Nathan Aspinall and Rob Cross, he defeated Cross in the final 7:6 and defeated the reinvigorated Aspinall 8:3. “It’s a frustrating game. I had played well in the past few weeks and still lost a lot of games. Also yesterday I had nothing to reproach myself against Ross Smith and still lost 1:6. And today I started very weak…”, Searle said a little thoughtfully.

The average of 90.92 was enough to beat outsider Jimmy Hendriks 6:5, albeit narrowly. At the end of a long day, the final and the title awaited. “I said to myself, ‘No matter what happens, you won’t lose this final.’ I hadn’t won the last four or five.”