This year Going Dutch sees a record of sixteen Netherlands players at the PDC World Championship! Some of them are predicted by many as outsiders who may go very deep in the tournament.
One Dutch participant in fine form is Jermaine Wattimena who makes his latest appearance against Swiss debutant Stefan Bellmont.
Another making a Palace debut, is the reigning two-time World Masters Champion Wesley Plaisier. He plays Ryusei Asemoto in round 1, but is already tipped by many to win against two time World Champion Peter Wright in round 2!
Christian Kist returns to Ally Pally and will be happy not to have drawn Luke Littler like last year! Kist starts against Madars Razma with the winner of that to face Dirk van Duijvenbode, who seems to be back edging back to form.
We also have an all Dutch first round tie between ‘Hawkeye’ Kevin Doets and another Netherlander debuting at the 2025 event, Noa-Lynn van Leuven. Both players showed some great darts this year so it should be a very enjoyable game with the winner to face a former World Champion in Michael Smith!
Richard Veenstra makes his second appearance against Alexis Toylo with the winner to face Krzysztof Ratajski, whilst Alexander Merkx makes his Ally Pally debut against Stephen Burton.
Jeffrey de Zwaan finally makes his return to the Worlds after a four year absence, and he starts against Germany’s Florian Hempel with the winner to face Daryl Gurney. There is a lot of pressure on De Zwaan though as he needs to win both of those games to save his tourcard.
Wessel Nijman is tipped by many to go very deep in this tournament and that makes sense as the Dutch talent has a more favourable draw. Nijman starts against South African Cameron Carolissen and the winner then faces an out of form Joe Cullen.
Niels Zonneveld is also in great form after a run in the PC Finals in Minehead. He starts against Robert Owen with the winner to play Gabriel Clemens.
Raymond van Barneveld opens his World Championship in round two against either Nick Kenny or Stowe Buntz. As the 32nd seed he does have a potential very tough third round game though, with the number one seed and defending champion Luke Humphries probably awaiting him.
Danny Noppert is yet to have a big run at a World Championship and once again the draw has not been kind to him. In round 1 he plays either the World Grand Prix semifinalist Ryan Joyce, or Darius Labanauskas who has won both on the WDF Circuit and the Modus Super Series this year.
Gian van Veen will try to make his disappointing first round exit last year right. The World Youth Champion is a seed now and takes on either Ricardo Pietreczko or Xiao Chen Zong. There already is a chance of a very interesting third round game between GVV and former Champion of the World Rob Cross.
Last but not least we still have Michael van Gerwen as the highest ranked Dutchman. The world number three might not be in good form but the likes of Humphries and Littler are all in the opposite half of the draw. MVG opens against either James Hurrell or Jim Long, two great players but still you expect Mighty Mike to come through that.
The seed Van Gerwen could face in round three is an out of form Brendan Dolan. That means a fourth round is already very doable for Van Gerwen although we could see an enormous clash against Gary Anderson for a quarterfinal spot there.
Despite everyone writing him off based on form, it would still not even surprise me if Van Gerwen went on to make the final. There is even a dream possibility of Van Gerwen against Nijman in the semifinals!
But let’s not look that far yet, and first see how many of the record number of sixteen Dutch players are still in the tournament after Christmas!
——ENDS—–
Words: Wim Blokpoel
Images: PDC
Originally published in Darts World Magazine 588 (December 2024)
