‘I want to win as much as possible!’ says an ambitious Gerwyn Price after his brilliant title win at the ELTEN Safety Shoes Baltic Sea Darts Open. It was hard work, but in the end the ‘Iceman’ came out on top, leaving Kiel as the winner and securing 30,000 pounds in prize money.
The Welshman thus claimed his ninth European Tour title and equalled Peter Wright in the ranking for most trophies. Only Michael van Gerwen has won more European Tour events. It is Price’s first title of the season on the Tour.
“I think I played pretty well all weekend. The crowd were amazing and really supportive, which always helps. I really needed this win – for my head and of course for the ranking,‘ said the ’Iceman” afterwards.
The path to victory was paved by games beyond the 100-point mark. In the round of 16, the newly crowned champion survived two match darts against Wessel Nijman and fought his way through to the next round in the decider. This was followed by victories against world number one Luke Humphries (6 – 3) and former Masters champion Chris Dobey (7 – 3). He then won the title with an 8 – 3 victory over Gary Anderson.
Anderson was in his second European Tour final of the season. In Sindelfingen, ‘The Flying Scotsman’ was able to celebrate his title defence. In Kiel, however, he lost out. Nevertheless, Anderson was still in a joking mood after the final:
‘I should really be in bed by this time,’ joked the Scot, adding: “But seriously – it doesn’t matter what tournament it is: if you get to the final, you’ve done a good job. It was great to play here in Germany. The fans were great too. Gezzy is a deserved winner.”
In addition to eight of the top ten players, seven Germans also qualified for the ninth European Tour event of the season. Niko Springer, who moved up into the field of participants and postponed his holiday at short notice, played his way into Sunday afternoon with victories over Kevin Troppmann and Stephen Bunting. There he had to admit defeat to Martin Schindler in the second German duel of his tournament run. Schindler progressed to the quarter-finals as the best German. ‘The Wall’ was defeated by James Wade.
Two Germans, Martin Kramer (56) and Yorick Hofkens (18), made their European Tour debuts. Kramer lost 3 – 6 to Dutchman Wessel Nijman, while Hofkens fought his way into the decider in a strong debut and was ultimately narrowly beaten 5 – 6 by Cameron Menzies. Liam Maendl-Lawrence bowed out with a 2 – 6 against Luke Woodhouse from Kiel. For Germany’s number two, Ricardo Pietreczko, the tournament ended after an opening win against Poland’s Sebastian Bialecki with a 4 – 6 defeat against Nathan Aspinall in round two.
The PDC Europe takes a summer break and returns at the end of August with the Flanders Darts Trophy in Antwerp, Belgium. But the darts madness continues – next weekend at the legendary World Matchplay in Blackpool.
