2022 German Darts Championship Preview

The Premier League didn’t go to plan for us last night. MVG landed his second win in succession, it’ll be interesting to see how James Punt rates his chances in the 2022 German Darts Championship. Can he make it three in a row, find out in James’ preview below.

2022 German Darts Championship – Hildesheim, Germany

The second Euro tour event of the season, following Gerwyn Price’s win at the International Darts Open two weeks ago.

This event was not held in 2021 which means Devon Petersen is the defending champion and he starts at the first round stage, having come through the qualifying event. The last five German Darts Championships have seen five different winners and there are five past winners in the field, Petersen, Daryl Gurney, Michael van Gerwen, Peter Wright and Dave Chisnall. World number five, MVG is the only multiple winner, having won in 2015 and 2018. He was runner up in 2017.

Gerwyn Price is the number 1 seed and as usual the top 16 seeds enter at the second round phase, with 24 pro tour qualifiers, and a further 8 home nation, and regional tour qualifiers.

The Seeds

Gerwyn Price

Looked pissed off with the crowd and losing his number 1 world ranking at Minehead at the weekend. He lost his quarter final match to Michael Smith 7-10 but the crowd had turned nasty by Sunday Afternoon and he was having to throw with the PDC’S resident wolf whistler in full flow. He has won eight of his last ten matches and his 2022 win rate has dropped to 71%. Late News: Price withdraws due to a hand injury.

Jose de Sousa

The Special One has lost five of his ten matches and four of his last five. His 2022 win rate is 63% and seasonal average just 94.2. Clearly not at his best.

Michael Smith

Bully Boy will have been crushed by his eighth major final defeat on Sunday night. Having got rid of Gerwyn Price in the quarters, with MVG, Wright, Wade and all the big guns gone, he beat Keane Barry in the semi-final and faced Danny Noppert in the final. This was his big chance to get that massive monkey off his back, and he blew it. Everything was in his favour, including the crowd who were giving Danny Noppert the Gerwyn Price treatment.

Noppert was playing really poorly, and this was an open goal of a major final. He lost 10-11, to an opponent averaging 84. Hard to see him bouncing back from that too soon. Smith did reach the final of last night’s Premier League but averaged just 90 in his first two matches before losing 4-6 to MVG, when Smith played a lot better.

Peter Wright

Due to the way the rankings work, Peter Wright moved up to number 1, despite losing his third round match at the UK Open. He will be chuffed to bits but on the downside, he suffered a reoccurrence of his gallstone problems of a few years ago and was in some pain. There are no quick fixes to the problem, and he will have to go back to healthy eating and looking after the condition.

 The last time he was suffering with gallstones he lost a lot of weight and form along with it. Wright has won six of his last ten and is averaging 99.1 with 77% win rate. He has to come with a health/wealth warning. Snakebite averaged 102 in his 5-6 defeat by an out of form Jonny Clayton last night.

Jonny Clayton

The Ferret’s form has tailed off in recent weeks. He has lost four of his last ten matches and he has lost his winning habit. His B game remains effective and he reached the semi-final in the opening euro tour event two weeks ago, but he is hard to fancy in terms of winning titles right now. His win rate is down to 66% which his poor by his standards.

Joe Cullen

The Rockstar’s brilliant start to 2022, winning the Masters and back to back players championship titles has hit something of a wall. He has lost five of his last six matches and he suddenly looks a bit ordinary again. He loves the euro tour but maybe he is finding the schedule of being an elite player a bit of a shock. Cullen got a bye into the semi-final of last night’s PL but was thrashed 1-6 by MVG. It was another poor performance.

Michael van Gerwen

MVG fans got very excited last Thursday when Mighty Mike won the Premier League night 4. He played very well, beating Clayton, Smith and Wright, averaged over a ton and he was all set for the UK Open. He beat Gary Anderson but then lost to Damon Heta. Van Gerwen played well, but Heta was betta, winning 10-4. Back to the drawing board.

He has won eight of his last ten matches and is averaging 98.1 in 2022. MVG is a two time winner of this title and a one time runner up. He won last night’s Premier League, his second in a row but only Michael Smith gave him a match and he looked only OK.

Brendan Dolan

The History Maker’s horrible start to 2022 continues. He has played 9 and lost 9, averaging 91.4. Grim. Move on. Late News – Dolan has withdrawn.

Ryan Searle

 Another seed whose form has dropped off. He has lost six of his last ten matches, he has lost consistency and is hard to fancy right now.

Rob Cross

Ditto Rob Cross. He has lost five of his last ten matches and his win rate is down to 59%. It seems that his confidence has dipped again, and he is another that is hard to fancy.

Dirk van Duijvenbode

There are some signs of a return to form for the Aubergenius, but they are limited. Dirk has lost five of his last ten matches and while he was very good when beating Borland and Schindler in the UK Open at the weekend, he was very poor when going down 2-10 to Danny Noppert and averaging just 87.2. He is improving but there are still too many poor performances to suggest he can win five matches in a row.

Dimitri van den Bergh

Dimitri isn’t getting much return from his good form. He was majestic when beating Daryl Gurney 10-2 in the UK open, averaging 103, but was then dumped out 8-10 to Ryan Searle in the next round. He was a losing quarter finalist at the International Darts Open the previous weekend, and before that, runner up in PC4. Van den Bergh is averaging 97.7 in 2022 with a win rate of 67% and has won seven of his last ten matches. He is a serious contender for any tournament in this sort of form.

Damon Heta

I had high hopes for our 51.00 outsider to win the UK Open and despite a hard draw, he beat MVG and Clayton before going down very easily to Danny Noppert in the quarter final. Noppert wasn’t great but Heta’s scoring just vanished and winning five legs flattered him. He has a win rate of 73% in 2022 and an average of 98.8 but has lost four of his last ten. With his game he should be doing better and that poor performance against Noppert, when he was very much in contention for the title, sounded alarm bells about his mental toughness.

Luke Humphries

Humphries is another player who should be doing better given an annual average of 97.1 and a 71% win rate. However, he too has lost four of his last ten. He lost his opening match at the UK Open, missing match darts to beat Ian White, and lost 9-10. There is still a lot to like about his game and his last three defeats have seen him average 101, 102 and 99. If he can start converting close things into good wins then he can enter the winner’s circle.

Callan Rydz

Continues to struggle for form. His 2022 win rate is just 40%, his average 94.0 and he has lost six of his last ten matches. Hard to fancy.

Krzysztof Ratajski

The Polish Eagle has not been scoring high of late. His win rate is down to 61% and his 2022 average 93.8, well off his peak. He has had a couple of decent runs in players championships but nothing special. He has lost five of his last ten and is hard to fancy.

As result of the two seeded players withdrawing, Gabriel Clemens and Chris Dobey have been made the 15th and 16th seeds respectively. Jose De Sousa is now the number 1 seed and the whole draw was up ended, forcing a re-write for yours truly. As a result I will not have time to preview this afternoon’s first round matches.

Clemens is in poor form, losing six of his last ten matches. Chris Dobey is one of the heaviest scorers in the game, 6th highest averaged over the last 12 months, but he finds winning hard. His 2022 win rate is just 58%, he has won six of his last ten nut lost three of his last four.

Non Seeded Players

Kim Huybrechts

The Hurricane is playing well enough without threatening to win a title. His 2022 win rate is a healthy 73% and his average 94.3 but he has lost four of his last ten. He is playing better than he has for some time, he will have some good runs and move up the rankings, but he will hit a flat spot or just find someone playing too good to think he could pick up a stage title.

Daryl Gurney

Won this title back in 2019 so he has positive mental associations with the event. A bit like Huybrechts, Gurney is playing better than he has been for a while but is still lacking consistency and not taking as many of his chances as he needs to. He was unlucky to face a rampant Dimitri van den Bergh last weekend and the previous weekend he didn’t take his chances against Heta and lost both matches heavily. He is not far away from his A game, but not quite there yet.

Devon Petersen

Another past winner and the defending champion. We backed him at 67.00 to win this in 2020 but he was at the very top of his game back then. Since then, he completely lost it, until recently when he started to hit big numbers again. His A game revolves around 180 hitting and while he is not back to where he was in 2020, he is at least scoring better and hitting more treble 20s. However, he has lost seven of his last ten matches and his three wins were against lightweight opposition.

Dave Chisnall

Chizzy has been a bit quiet in 2022 but he did win this title back in 2013. Chisnall was runner up in The Masters at the start of the season and reached the quarter final of PC 4. His win rate is 75%, his seasonal average 96 and he has won seven of his last ten. That’s not bad form but he isn’t on anybody’s radar. Maybe that’s because he hasn’t won any sort of title since 2019. He is worth keeping an eye on but a potential winner? Hard to see that coming in.

Mensur Suljovic

The Gentle likes his euro tours and has played well here in the past, reaching three semi-finals. The problem is that his form in the last year or more has been pretty poor. In 2022 he has won six of his last ten matches, is averaging 93 with an overall win rate of 59%. That is not the form of a potential winner. He has gotten lucky with the withdrawal of Ted Evetts and gets a bye into the second round to face Callan Rydz.

Karel Sedláček

Any player who has won their last 16 matches in a row is worthy of a mention. Evil Charlie did just that last weekend at the PDC Eastern European Tour qualifiers. He was unbeaten in the four qualifying tournaments, winning sixteen matches. However, that was at a lower level and his average over the four events was 87.5. He will be feeling happy, and he has played on the pro tour for the last two years. His A game can produce ton plus averages. He is unlikely to have a deep run, but he might rain on somebody’s parade.

2022 German Darts Championship Outright Selections

The first quarter looked there for the taking for Gerwyn Price, but the new draw has De Sousa as the top seed and he is joined by Dobey, Rob Cross and Dirk van Duijvenbode, none of whom look like having a good run. Kim Huybrechts joins this quarter in the first round, facing Joe Murnan and De Sousa should he win that match. The draw is good for Huybrechts and he could be a dark horse, but winning the whole thing looks unlikely. If Dobey could convert good scoring into match wins, he could make some progress, but losing three of his last four is not great.

Quarter Of Death

The second quarter looked to be the quarter of death as its four seeds were Peter Wright, Damon Heta, Jonny Clayton and Dimitri van den Bergh. It is all change now and the four seeds are Clayton, Rydz, Cullen and Humphries. Out of those seeds, Humphries makes the most appeal by some margin.

Humphries has fluffed his lines in his last two matches, losing deciding legs to Price and White, but he averaged 102.6 and 99.9 respectively, so there is not too much wrong with his game. The interesting non seeded players are Suljovic, who gets a bye into round two to play Rydz. Daryl Gurney plays Lucas Wenig in the first round and should he win that, he plays Humphries with whom he leads 3-2 in the H2H’s.

MVG A Potential Winner?

The final quarter has Wright, Ratajski, Van Gerwen and Damon Heta as the seeds. Jamie Hughes gets a bye into the second round and will play Ratajski. MVG has now won eight of his last ten and is beginning to look like a potential winner, but I was not completely sold on him last night, his confidence still looks paper thin. He has also lost two recent matches to Damon Heta, and they are drawn to meet again in round three. I would say that Peter Wright is the most likely to move through to the semi-final.

2 points Peter Wright to win the 2022 German Darts Championship @ 6.00 with Ladbrokes

1 point e/w Luke Humphries to win the 2022 German Darts Championship @ 29.00 with BET365, Unibet

1 point e/w Dimitri van den Bergh to win the 2022 German Darts Championship @ 15.00 generally available

-JamesPunt

*Due to the re-draw I will not be covering this afternoon’s matches but will look at this evening’s matches later. Due to a prior engagement, I will have limited time to cover Saturday afternoon’s matches but normal service resumes from Saturday evening.