There are seasons in a sportsman’s life that are measured in titles, averages, and trophies. And then there are those measured in survival. For three-time PDC World Champion, Michael van Gerwen, 2025 didn’t simply wobble — it collapsed, cracked, and forced him to crawl through the rubble.
The Dutch icon, the darting leviathan, the man who built a darting empire on dominance and defiance, found himself navigating something far darker than a dip in form. This was a year that stripped him bare.
A divorce played out away from the stage lights, shattering the private foundation he’d stood on since long before he became a three-time world champion. The process — the paperwork, the negotiations, the grief of dismantling a life — became a shadow that followed him everywhere. He walked on stage with it. Travelled with it. Practised with it. Slept with it. And it left fingerprints all over his game.
On the Darts Draait Door podcast — hosted partly by his longtime friend Vincent van der Voort — MVG spoke with a candour you rarely hear from him. The armour slipped. The man stepped forward.
“That has done a lot to me as a person,” he said quietly, reflecting on the collapse of his marriage to Daphne. In his voice, you could hear the weight of a year no statistics could possibly quantify. He didn’t hide from it. Didn’t spin it. Didn’t varnish the truth. The divorce, now finalised, has brought some stability but not necessarily simplicity.
“We [myself and Daphne] have good agreements and contact about the children. That is the most important thing… We both have a new life and we have to move forward with that.” It’s said gently — but the undertone is unmistakably raw. And if that alone weren’t enough to derail even the strongest competitor, fate swung again. His father’s serious illness became another emotional anchor tied around him.
“All of that has a big impact on me… This was without question the toughest year of my life.” This isn’t the pumped-up MVG quotes you get on stage. This isn’t the defiant fist-pumper roaring after a 170. This is the man, stripped back to honesty.
“I have to do it all alone, nobody can help me with this. It needs time and sometimes more time than I allow myself. I have to accept that.” Acceptance — the hardest word for a man who has spent his career refusing to accept anything but perfection. And yet, in the midst of the emotional storm, a new kind of balance is taking shape, slowly, awkwardly, but unmistakably.
“I want to perform well again. And to be a good father, that is the most important thing. Finding the balance is getting better and better. But it is not always entirely good or calm.” A reminder that even giants bleed. It’s his children, more than trophies, who anchor him now. His daughter, Zoe, in particular, remains his spark in the darkness.
“She loves it. Zoe is crazy about darts and already asked when she could come again and when I was going to win a prize for her again.” There it is — the smile beneath the battle scars. The reason to get up, get back on the board, and try again.
And so, battered but unbroken, Van Gerwen turns towards his nineteenth World Championship appearance. The old routine calls to him: the walk, the roar, the glare, the absorption into the hurricane of Ally Pally energy. His opponent is Japan’s Mitsuhiko Tatsunami — a name unlikely to frighten him — but this year the real opponent is something internal. Not a rival. Not a seed. Not a bracket. It’s the version of himself he lost somewhere along the way. And he knows it. He admits the balance still wavers.
“Giving that a place now and then is not easy.” But he also knows the one indestructible truth of competitive sport: nothing is permanent. A slump isn’t a sentence. A bad year isn’t a prophecy.
And Michael van Gerwen, even wounded, is still Michael van Gerwen. He’s rediscovering the rhythm. The discipline. The mentality. The spine of steel that once terrified every man who shared a stage with him. His life has changed. His future has changed. He has changed. But he isn’t done. Not even close.
There are cracks in the armour — but light gets in through cracks. And perhaps, for the first time in his career, Van Gerwen is embracing the idea that he doesn’t need to be unstoppable to be exceptional.He just needs to be ready. And on that famed Alexandra Palace stage — under lights he has conquered so many times — the sport may finally meet the newest version of MVG: Scarred. Human. Battle-tested.
And, quite possibly, more dangerous than ever.
——ENDS—–
Images: PDC
