Photography courtesy of PDC Europe
Van Gerwen snatches opening European Tour title in Leverkusen Michael Van Gerwen was victorious in the opening European Tour event of the year after he beat Peter Wright in agonising fashion in Leverkusen. Peter Wright and James Wade also had exceptional runs while Richard North reached his first European Tour semi-final. Van Gerwen lifted six out of the 12 European Tour events last year and has got off to the perfect start in Leverkusen as he claimed his 21st European Tour title. ‘Mighty Mike’ survived a slight scare in his opening round encounter with BDO ranking event winner Cameron Menzies but he eventually came out a 6-3 winner. Van Gerwen then fired in an average of 105.99 in a 6-3 win
over Alan Norris before reaching the semi-finals with a 6-1 demolition job over Simon Whitlock. It was a fairly easy victory in the semi-finals for Van Gerwen as he thrashed Richard North 7-1 in the first ever best of 13 game on the European Tour. Van Gerwen went head to head with Peter Wright in the final. Wright had found his feet again this weekend after a poor start to the year. ‘Snakebite’ averaged over the 100 mark in all four of his games before the final against Luke Woodhouse, James Wade, Joe Cullen and John Henderson. ‘Snakebite’ stormed into a 5-1 lead in the final taking out a 110 checkout along the way but Van
Gerwen tracked back to level the match up at 5-5 before Wright took the lead once again with an 81 checkout. Wright went one step towards victory once again as he pinned a 78 checkout but Van Gerwen won three legs on the spin to claim his 21st European Tour event and his 104th career tournament victory. Richard North was the conqueror of Rob Cross in Leverkusen as he went onto reach his first ever European Tour semi-finalist. Cross will still be searching for his maiden title in Europe next weekend as we head to Munich for the second European Tour event of the year.
Turn over for our exclusive interview with former Players Championship Winner Paul Nicholson. Paul speaks to The Maximum about his career so far, how the European Tour commentator role came about and his ‘aims’ for the remainder of his professional career.
Photography courtesy of Lawrence Lustig, PDC, PDC Europe and Stefan Strassenburg
Photography courtesy of Michael Cooper and the PDC
Price eliminated after Night Eight while Gurney gets the home support in Belfast
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aryl Gurney gets his first win in Belfast as he sees off Rob Cross while Gerwyn Price is eliminated after failing to get a win in eight Premier League matches. Daryl Gurney fired in nine maximums as he came from 4-2 down to beat Rob Cross 7-5 in front of a supportive Belfast crowd. In the ninth leg, Gurney pinned a 119 checkout to take the lead for the first time in the encounter, this was the turning point in a terrific match on the SSE Arena stage. Gurney will take on Peter Wright on judgement night in Liverpool next Thursday. Wright came from 6-3 down to snatch a draw against Simon Whitlock. The world number two returned to from at the weekend, reaching the final in Leverkusen. Wright converted a crucial 120 checkout in the eleventh leg before grabbing a draw by hitting double 16. Wright will need at least a point to avoid being relegated after week nine at the Echo Arena.
Mensur Suljovic suffered another Unibet Premier League defeat, this time at the hands of Gary Anderson. Suljovic will need to draw against Michael Van Gerwen next week and hope ‘Snakebite’ fails to beat World Grand Prix champion Daryl Gurney. Anderson hit just two 180s but had a 50% checkout rate but it was enough to see off the Austrian 7-5. Michael Van Gerwen continues his run of good run in the Unibet Premier League and will be looking to top the table for a sixth successive year. Van Gerwen averaged 104.47 in a 7-2 thrashing of his Dutch rival Raymond Van Barneveld. ‘Barney’ led 2-1 in the encounter but ‘Mighty Mike’ reeled off six legs on the spin to take the victory in the Dutch derby. “My finishing was good and I didn’t make a lot of mistakes, so I’m happy with this win,” said Van Gerwen. “I like winning and I want to keep this going. “I’m very confident and my form is good. My scoring power isn’t there
yet but I’m winning my games and all that matters is being top of the table and getting into the PlayOffs.” Gerwyn Price was relegated from the competition after failing to get a win in his eight games so far in his first Premier League campaign. Price was once again beaten convincingly, this time by former World Youth Champion Michael Smith. Smith averaged just 93 but checkout out in a 46% ratio and pinned a 160 checkout. “I was trying not to watch Gerwyn because I knew he was under pressure. “I’m trying to fight and win every match that I can, because I’m playing well away from the Premier League and not producing it on that stage at the moment.” Two players will be eliminated from the competition next week in Liverpool. Gerwyn Price is already heading back to Wales but it’s looking like either Mensur Suljovic or Peter Wright will be heading for the exit gates.
Photography courtesy of Chris Dean / PDC
Photography couresty of PDC Europe
I
t’s long been argued that many good floor players don't bring their "A-Game" to the big televised stage but it's not really questioned the other way round. So do the games elite play the floor tournaments to the same level as they do on stage? The introduction of the Dart Connect digital boards to the Players Championship (PC) events certainly allows players performance to be scrutinised in greater detail than ever before. At the time of writing this article - after the Masters, the U.K Open, the first six Premier League matches and the first 4 players championship events - on the face of it, it appears the elite dominate both. MVG has won The Masters, PC1, PC2 and is sitting top of the Premier League, whereas the U.K Open, PC3 and PC4 titles have all been claimed by Gary Anderson. But statistically how different are the standards on TV compared to the floor? To allow a true comparison be made a particular sample of players were analysed - the ten Premier League stars of 2018 - comparing the aforementioned tournaments except the UK Open, due to the unusual circumstances it was played in this year. The first area examined was leg win percentage collectively for the players. Unsurprisingly, the leg win percentage in the PC series is higher. Overall these players have an 8.17% higher leg win percentage at 59.89% (51.72% in the Premier League & Masters), an 8.07% higher leg win percentage on throw (72.2% compared to 64.13%) and an 8.19% higher leg win percentage against throw (47.23% compared to 39.04%). The reason for this is due to two reasons a) The 2 televised tournaments analysed contains only players within the top 16 PDC order of Merit meaning they are playing each other regularly. This is naturally going to lower win percentage levels and b) The floor events are played over a larger field, therefore instead of facing the best 16 in the world, you could face any one of the 128 tour card holders therefore supposedly having some easier matches. You do get some individual deviations to this statistic however. Due to his superb start to his Premier League campaign, Michael Smith is
performing better on the big stage with a higher leg win percentage overall, on throw and against throw. One other notable big difference is the massive increase in Gary Andersons leg win percentage on throw, off stage. In the first 4 PC events he's won 80.65% of the legs played on throw compared to just 64.91% on stage. A word of caution on this however is his bad back that blighted his early season performances but seems to have been resolved now, hence his upturn in form especially at PC3 and PC4. The next area focused upon was three dart averages (3DA). Out of all the areas examined this showed the minimalist difference. The two areas considered here were the overall 3DA and First Nine 3DA. The selection of players had a slightly lower first nine 3DA on TV (105.37) compared to the PC series (106.13). Conversely, the overall 3DA is very slightly higher on TV at 97.14 compared to 96.98 off stage. The elite players therefore produce a very similar standard at both types of tournament. So far in 2018, Suljović, MVG and Whitlock all have higher TV averages than at the PC events. On the back of this statistic it's no surprise to find out that 15 dart legs are most common across both disciplines. On the PC floor events 25.36% of legs are completed using 15 darts as opposed to 22.37% on the televised stage. One thing apparent however on the darts per leg statistic is the standard on TV is much more consistent. Thirteen and fourteen dart legs on TV are more frequent - by 9.45% - on the PC tour, with 30.98% occurring on stage compared to 21.53% off stage. Also, the spread of 11 to 18 dart legs covers most games on TV with 95.03% falling within this range. During the PC series these elite players have completed just 91.42% within the same range. When it comes to scoring, the 180 per leg ratio across the selected players is similar at the two events. It is 0.27 during the televised tournaments and slightly higher at 0.29 in the PC events. 100+ visits are also more frequent off stage, with a 53.25% hit rate (from possible throws), slighter lower on stage at 51.72%. One player performing much better in PC events on the scoring front is Rob Cross, with a 180 per leg ratio of 0.4 (0.34 on stage) and 100+ visits hit 58.3% of the time as opposed to 46.27% on stage - albeit these figures are slightly skewed by The
Voltage starting slowly in the 2018 Premier League. The most common score collectively in both types of events is 140 although Suljović, RVB and Gurney have most frequently scored 100 in both. The only player currently having a discrepancy across the two areas is Peter Wright, who on stage is most frequently hitting a 140 but off stage is hitting more 100's. This may just be an anomaly at this early stage of the season but you never know with Snakebite who's change of darts can have a serious impact on his performance. The final aspect of the game analysed was check out percentages and these too are very similar. When on outshot the selected players are taking out these opportunities 41.21% of the time on TV. This figure is slightly lower off stage at 40.14%. Interestingly, the 161-170 range of out shots is performing much better in the PC events. 5.41% of these opportunities are taken compared to 3.13% on stage. It may seem small but there's a difference of over 2% in these figures and these big shots can change the tied of a game if taken at the right time. The conclusion on all the evidence gathered is that the elite players dominate both type of events. There is a clear correlation between them producing very similar standards across the board. The stage matches predominantly feature the elite so the standard is more consistent with a lower range of darts per leg used. The less intimidating and more relaxed atmosphere of the floor games however seems to bring about more big finishes, particularly as the 10 elite players analysed are winning a higher percentage of legs thus having more opportunities to take these shots out. I'm sure these figures would be slightly different if the analysis was expanded to the Top 32 as opposed to an elite ten and this would widen further if the sample was extended even more. There will always be isolated individuals who occasionally don't perform to the norm but as the European Tour gets experienced by more players over time, they will become more accustomed to the big stage thus deleting the old adage of players not being able to bring their AGame to the stage. Words: Carl Fletcher (@CarlyFletch)
Photography couresty of JDC, PDCNB and David Gill / BDO