Raymond van Barneveld is relieved after his victory in the second round of the World Darts Championship in London. Despite a very difficult preparation, De Hagenaar won 3-1 against Englishman Ryan Meikle on Tuesday.
“It was really a fight with myself,” said 55-year-old Van Barneveld Viaplay. “As I said before, I felt far from good. I was really tired, that was not nice.”
Van Barneveld had already said at the beginning of the evening that he may have eaten something wrong the night before and was not 100 percent fit. “It took all the energy out of me,” he said afterwards.
“I was lucky that the games ended 3-1 for me. That gave me a bit more time and at the end I felt pretty good. I didn’t feel like I had to go to the toilet, it was just tiredness. It was a really tough day for me.”
The 2007 PDC world champion had considerable resistance from Meikle, especially in the beginning. “He played really crazy”, said ‘Barney’. “He didn’t miss any triples in the first few sets, luckily he did in the last sets. But I really had to go deep.”
Van Barneveld will take on Gerwyn Price, the number one in the world, in the third round on December 27. At the Grand Slam of Darts in November, the native of The Hague defeated Price twice.
“That’s my grandson’s birthday, no one will ever beat me on that day”, Van Barneveld looked ahead. “But now I first have a week to recover.”
