Michael van Gerwen has qualified for the third time on Sunday for the final of the UK Open in Minehead. The Brabant number one in the world won in the semi-finals thanks to a nine-darter 11-3 against Daryl Gurney.
Van Gerwen had no problem with Gurney. He already broke it in the third leg, after which he was on a 3-2 lead at the first pause and immediately threw the ninarter in the sixth leg.
‘Mighty Mike’ started the leg with twice 180 and ended with a 141 finish by means of triple 20, triple 19 and double 12. He showed remarkably little emotion after his piece of art and only briefly raised a finger.
Van Gerwen then quickly ran out to an 8-2 lead, Gurney awarded one more leg at that position, but steamed on to the remainder to 11-3 and came with 110.32 just like in the quarterfinals against Rob Cross ( 110.81) to an average above 110.
De Vlijmenaar faces Gerwyn Price in the final, who was also convincingly 11-4 in the other semi-final for Jonny Clayton. He was also above an average of 110 points for a long time, but eventually had to settle for 102.39 points.
Clayton already threw a nine-darter on Saturday
Clayton already threw a ninety-darter at this tournament on Saturday in the sixth round against Chris Dobey and that was the first at the UK Open since 2016, when Van Gerwen scored the perfect leg against Rob Cross.
Van Gerwen is working on an impressive tournament. In addition to Cross (10-4), he also settled in the fourth round with defending champion Nathan Aspinall (10-8) and in the sixth round with James Wade (10-4), but escaped elimination against Jason in the fifth round Lowe (10-9), against whom he lost a 5-0 lead.
The triple world champion therefore has a chance to win his first title of the year – he did not grab any honorary metal in this period of the year for the last time – and his first overall victory at the UK Open since 2016. He stranded in the last two years the fourth round.
A record number of 23 Dutchmen took part in the UK Open. Twenty of them already flew out on Friday, Dirk van Duijvenbode made the fifth round (7-10 against Mensur Suljovic) and Jelle Klaasen the quarterfinals (9-10 against Gurney).
Van Gerwen was the last Dutchman to take the overall win in 2016, including all 128 Tour card holders of the PDC. The winner earns 100,000 British pounds (around 115,000 euros) in prize money.
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