Bizarre appearances from Pietreczko
Germany’s best darts professional takes on everyone
By Kevin Schulte
March 12, 2024, 7:41 p.m
No German dart player has been as successful as Ricardo Pietreczko in a year, but at the same time no one has caused as much controversy. “Pikachu” proves to be a sore loser far too often, and recently he has also been feuding with “prodigy” Luke Littler.
Ricardo Pietreczko has been Germany’s most successful darts player for over a year. The 30-year-old from Nuremberg became only the second German to win a major PDC tournament in September, had the eventual world champion Luke Humphries on the verge of defeat in December and also proved his quality at the first European Tour event of this year: “On Sunday evening, ” Pikachu” reached the semi-finals of the Belgian Darts Open in Wieze after defeating former Premier League winner Jonny Clayton. It is the first of 13 tournaments on the European Tour, only the big major events are more important.
In the semifinals, the team finished 3:7 against high-flyer Luke Littler. But almost every player loses against the outstanding 17-year-old World Cup finalist. Pietreczko has nothing to blame himself for after a good performance, but he does cause a bit of a scandal. As if bitten by a tarantula, he approaches his opponent after Littler’s converted match dart. Shakes his hand and says a few serious words with an angry expression. Pietreczko and Littler are head to head. As if they were about to be at each other’s throats. An absurd scene that is more reminiscent of two boxers than two darts professionals.
Because Littler stays cool and doesn’t respond to the German opponent’s tirade, “Pikachu” steams off the stage a few seconds later. Littler shows his incomprehension towards Pietreczko, but then starts cheering. An hour later, “The Nuke”, as Littler is called, also wins the final against Rob Cross 8:7. The “prodigy” not only reached the final in his World Cup debut, but also won his first World Series event, Players Championship tournament and now also his first European Tour event. An incredible statistic, but one that is overshadowed by the bizarre Pietreczko appearance.
“I hope the arrogance punishes him”
Just a few minutes later, the second chapter of the encounter follows on social media. “I really appreciated him being able to play a game like that at such an age,” Pietreczko wrote on Instagram after the 3:7, “but I hope his arrogance punishes him.”
Littler simply smiled away his opponent’s verbal attack. “No idea what I did wrong, no idea what he said, something like ‘then don’t do it again,'” Littler wrote on Facebook.
The German was offended by Littler’s unusual checkout methods, and Pietreczko apparently perceived them as disrespectful. When the score was 3:1 for the vice world champion, he tried to erase 90 points via an unusual way (double 20, bullseye) – and failed. The German’s reaction was still surprising, especially since Pietreczko himself is known for one or two unorthodox checkout methods.
Lost nerves and game
A look at the incidents of the past shows that the problem may lie more with Pietreczko than with Littler. For the fourth time, Pietreczko has openly shown his displeasure on the big darts stage. It all started at the Hungarian Darts Trophy in Hungary, when “Pikachu” first lost his nerve and then the game against a local qualifier.
It continued with the memorable appearance at the Grand Slam of Darts in November, when Pietreczko was almost constantly booed by the audience in his second group game against women’s world champion Beau Greaves. The man from Nuremberg became more and more annoyed about it from minute to minute until he finally burst out. He provoked the audience with an ear gesture, which did him more harm than good. Greaves took advantage of her opponent’s mental weakness and won the game clearly.
Body language of horror at the Grand Slam
Two days later the meaningless final group game against Nathan Aspinall followed. During the walk-on, Pietreczko didn’t high-five anyone in the audience and didn’t give the fans a glance. “Pikachu” looked into the TV cameras as if he wanted to become the new darts villain. And he played differently than usual, acted hectically, threw his arrows much faster than usual and was often erratic. During the game, Pietreczko demonstratively shook his head after bad shots. A body language of horror. Absurd: Pietreczko still won the game.
This shows how high Ricardo Pietreczko’s basic playing level is. However, his strong sporting successes – the German is now even close to the illustrious circle of the top 32 – are all too often accompanied by bizarre appearances like the one on Sunday in Belgium. If “Pikachu” doesn’t manage to behave differently on stage, his playful quality will too often be overshadowed by trivialities in the future.