Dirk van Duijvenbode continues at World Cup darts after fantastic comeback | Darts

sport">Aubergenius knew he had to play better against Smith than in the second round. Then the Dutchman made it unnecessarily exciting against Boris Koltsov, but in the end he pulled the longest end (3-2).

sport">Although it was feared last week that after the Christmas recess due to the corona virus, no public would be allowed in the hall, Alexandra Palace ‘just’ again filled with enthusiastic darts fans on Monday.

Poor start Van Duijvenbode

sport">Those fans saw that Smith started the match stronger than Van Duijvenbode. He broke the Dutchman early in the first set. Because the Aubergenius couldn’t take a leg from his opponent as well, Smith pulled the first set to himself. Although both men did not put in a high-quality match, Smith was also the sharper in the second set. With a handsome 120 finish, he made it 2-0 in sets. Van Duijvenbode especially had trouble finding his doubles.

sport">The third set also fell in the direction of the Englishman and so the problems for Van Duijvenbode became very big. In an attempt to turn the tide, the Dutchman increased the pace. For a moment it looked like he was getting better at his game and he was looking at a 2-0 lead in legs, but that lead disappeared like snow in the sun. After Smith missed the chance to get a match dart, Van Duivenbode barely managed to win the fourth set: 1-3.

Comeback

sport">By winning that set, the Dutchman’s self-confidence also increased, while doubt started to strike at Smith. Van Duijvenbode felt everything that he now had to push through and he did. He dragged out the fifth set and so the difference in sets was reduced to one: 2-3.

sport">In the sixth set, both men’s nerves increased and that was especially visible in the first leg when both Van Duijvenbode and Smith missed legion of doubles. Yet it was Aubergenius who was the first to break his opponent and a few legs later to tie the score again: 3-3.

sport">In the decisive set, Van Duijvenbode was the first to break his opponent and thus take the victory out of the fire. A fantastic comeback from the Dutchman!

sport">“You have to watch when Dirkie is throwing, hey, it shouldn’t get boring,” says Van Duijvenbode (29) about his catch-up race. “I felt fine, but I think the first game took away some confidence. It didn’t exactly go perfectly in the beginning.” Van Duijvenbode failed in the decisive moments in the first sets, but he recovered in a clever way. “I thought halfway through the game: I should have won the game already, but I’m going to throw normally now. I started ‘pumping’ triples and thought: now you’re going to have a hard time. Good luck, I thought to myself. He started throwing less and I got better.”

sport">Michael Smith is also in the eighth finals. Bullyboy, losing finalist in 2019, was too strong for Irishman William O’Connor in the third round: 4-2. Australian Raymond Smith also qualified for the next round by beating German revelation Florian Hempel 4-1.

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