Emotional van Gerwen wins drama

Michael van Gerwen has triumphed at the Hungarian Darts Trophy. In the final, the three-time world champion defeated Gian van Veen 8:7 after a combative performance in the legs.

“MvG” showed his strong form right from the start. He won the first leg with a “big fish”, the 170 checkout. In the fourth leg, van Gerwen broke and led 3-1, but van Veen countered immediately and managed to catch up.

Everything stayed in line until 5:5, then van Gerwen faltered and hit triple 1, triple 1 and the five with one shot. Van Veen was there and managed to break to 6:5. But the joy did not last long, MvG hit back promptly and equalized. At 6:6, “MvG” missed two darts to win the leg – and van Veen mercilessly exploited this via Madhouse and the next break was perfect.

At 7:6, van Veen missed a match dart over the bullseye and van Gerwen saved himself in the decider. There, “Mighty Mike” checked out 110 points for victory and celebrated wildly. For van Veen, it was the first European Tour final.

In the semi-finals, van Veen had the upper hand against Ryan Searle with 7:5, while van Gerwen eliminated Ross Smith 7:3 in the second semi-final.

For his victory, the Dutchman receives prize money of 30,000 British pounds, while the defeated van Veen receives 12,000.

For all German players, the round of 16 ended. Ricardo Pietreczko had to give up his match against Ross Smith due to injury, and Gabriel Clemens, after his surprising victory against Luke Humphries, lost 2:6 to Michael van Gerwen.

It was also the end of the road for Martin Schindler – despite a nine-darter. In his match against Stephen Bunting, the Strausberg native was the first German to throw the perfect leg on a TV stage, but in the end he lost 4:6.