Danny Noppert and Gian van Veen have reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup of Darts on Saturday. The Dutch couple steamrolled over the Scottish former world champions Gary Anderson and Peter Wright: 8-0. The English team with Luke Littler and Luke Humphries disgraced themselves.
Noppert and Van Veen impressed from start to finish against the Scottish duo. The Dutch couple achieved an average of 100.2 per three darts in the Eissporthalle in Frankfurt and only allowed the Scots two darts at a double.
Anderson and Wright did not get further than a disappointing average of 79.73 per three darts. The Scots have both been world champions twice and won the World Cup together in 2019.
Noppert and Van Veen are having an impressive tournament. The couple is still without a leg loss after three matches. Italy and Hungary also failed to take any legs from the Netherlands in the group stage.
In the quarter-finals, the Netherlands will play against the Czech team on Sunday, consisting of Petr Křivka and Karel Sedláček. The Netherlands has won the World Cup four times. The last time was in 2018.
Then Michael van Gerwen and Raymond van Barneveld appeared at the oche. Both players are not present this year. ‘Mighty Mike’ announced at an early stage that he would skip the World Cup and ‘Barney’ has fallen too far on the rankings.
Littler and Humphries disgrace themselves
Littler and Humphries experienced a disgrace in Frankfurt. The English duo lost 8-4 to the German couple Martin Schindler/Ricardo Pietreczko.
Littler and Humphries were considered top favorites for the title. The English darters are the number one and two in the world and won the last two individual world titles at the PDC. England was also the defending champion at the World Cup.
Against Germany, it did not work out at all. It was equal until 2-2, but then Germany took five legs in a row. Pietreczko cleared the job at a 7-4 intermediate score by throwing out 62.
Schindler (PDC-18) and Pietreczko (PDC-28) may continue to dream of the world title. Germany has never reached the final at the World Cup.