European Championship hammer against defending champions
“Pikachu” is not distracted by wild brawls
October 28, 2023, 6:11 a.m
The German darts stars Gabriel Clemens and Martin Schindler are eliminated from the home European Championships after their first game. Completely different from Ricardo Pietreczko. The shooting star continues his fabulous series and immediately sets a big exclamation mark.
Ricardo Pietreczko made a successful European Championship debut and surprisingly defeated defending darts champion Ross Smith. The 29-year-old defeated the Englishman Smith 6-3 in Dortmund and secured his place in the round of 16. In the next round he will face the Dutch top favorite Michael van Gerwen, whom he recently defeated in the semi-finals when he won the tournament in Hildesheim. “I can’t believe it,” said Pietreczko in his first reaction. “It was the biggest arena I’ve ever played in.”
“Pikachu”, as the trained painter is called, once again put up outstanding numbers in his victory. In addition to a three-dart average of a good 104 points, the Nuremberg resident shone with his double rate of more than 46 percent. The world number 16 had that. Nothing to oppose Smith despite consistently good values. The German debutant was not affected by a heated argument in the audience in the early stages. Pietreczko observed a fight breaking out between fans right near the stage. One of the supporters could not be controlled and even several security employees could not get him out of the hall for several minutes.
Before the German’s game, which marked the end of the evening in front of over 5,000 spectators, several of the favorites mastered their compulsory tasks. Van Gerwen had to tremble a lot in the narrow 6:5 win over Madars Razma (Latvia). Razma missed two match darts to decide. England’s Luke Humphries, who earned the most prize money in the 2023 calendar year, had no problems in the 6-1 win against Brendan Dolan from Northern Ireland. The round of 16 are on the program on Saturday. Before Pietreczko, Gabriel Clemens and Martin Schindler were eliminated on Thursday evening. Both Clemens and Schindler have never won a game in a European championship.