Ricardo Pietreczko missed the round of 16 of the Darts World Cup. The 31-year-old deservedly lost 4-2 to the surprisingly strong Swede Andreas Harrysson in London on Saturday and was unable to repeat his success from the previous year, when he made it into the top 16 as the best German.
This means that the three German professionals Martin Schindler, Gabriel Clemens and Arno Merk are still in the tournament, all of whom will fight for a place in the round of 16 on Sunday. Pietreczko still takes home £35,000 in prize money by participating in the third round.
Pietreczko, who lost to England’s Nathan Aspinall in the round of 16 at the last World Cup, did not get off to a good start against Harrysson. The Swede scored heavily and left Pietreczko with few options – but “Pikachu” showed strong nerves: with a 158 finish he grabbed the second set. In the second round, Pietreczko survived a nervous thriller against Dave Chisnall (3:2), this time he was particularly lacking in consistency on the triple fields. Harrysson was the better player and used his second match dart to win.
Three Germans want to do better on Sunday. The German number one Martin Schindler meets the Englishman Ryan Searle at lunchtime. Former World Cup semi-finalist Gabriel Clemens is a clear outsider against world number two Luke Humphries (England) on Sunday evening. This also applies to debutant Arno Merk against the former dominator Michael van Gerwen from the Netherlands.
