More than 14,000 fans celebrated the tenth event in three days at the Ostermann Arena in Leverkusen. European Tour Winamax PDC Season. Both Safety shoes Elten European Darts Open Krzysztof Ratajski was victorious and won the third European Tour title of his career.
The road to the final: from Hopp to Van Veen and Aspinall
The Pole beat Max Hopp during the tournament and then beat No. 1 Jan van Veen and last year’s Leverkusen winner Nathan Aspinall.
In the first all-Polish semi-final in the history of the EuroTour, he eliminated his compatriot Sebastian Bialecki with a score of 7:5. This was the first time two Poles reached the final session of the European Tour.
Wattimena ends the quarter-final curse
In the final, the Polish Eagle faced Jermaine Wattimena, who had finally triumphed in his eighth attempt to reach the quarter-finals of the European Tour and thus reached the semi-finals, visibly moved and emotional. There he defeated last year’s finalist Damon Heth with a score of 7:3.
Finale: Duel on a Knife’s Edge
Ratajski started the final strongly with a 3-0 lead before he missed two darts in the doubles to make it an eventual 4-0 and thus send an initially weak Wattimena back into the final. Five legs later, the Dutchman scored 84 points over the bull’s eye to take the lead for the first time in this final and extend it to 6-4 in the next match. From this point on, the game was characterized by tension, as both players were unable to clearly break away with a double rate of less than 40%.
“When I was ahead, I missed important doubles. However, it’s a fair win for Ratajski because he also missed a lot of doubles and allowed me to get back into the game.”
This was also evident at 6-7 when Wattimena failed to force a potential deciding moment with two darts in the doubles. One shot later, the nervy Pole clinched his third European Tour title with a double 10 following his successes in Gibraltar in 2019 and Jena in 2023.
“Today’s title is really unexpected – I would be happy with a quarter-final or semi-final. The fact that it was enough to win obviously makes me incredibly happy.”
Week of Schmidt’s Fairy Tales
Host nation qualifier Jan Schmidt delighted the Leverkusen fans as he turned a 1-5 deficit into a 6-5 win over the in-form Cameron Menzies in his first match to progress into the second round. There he had another close exchange with the Belgian Mike De Decker – and again won 6:5. Only in the third round did the fabulous week of the German, who celebrated his victory at the PDC Europe Next Gen tournament last weekend, end with a match with veteran James Wade. The remaining host nation qualifiers Jamie van de Weerd and Daniel Klose were eliminated in the first round, while Dragutin Horvat was eliminated in the second round.
Light and shadow for German beginners
Niko Springer shone in his first game, averaging over 105 points to defeat Darius Labanauskas, but was then forced to concede defeat to top seed Jan van Veen on his birthday. Max Hopp was victorious in an emotional fight against Rob Cross in the first round before being forced to submit to eventual champion Krzysztof Ratajski in the second round. Both Dominik Grüllich (1st round) and German number 1 Martin Schindler (2nd round) lost to Kevin Doets.
Top seeds again without a spot in the semi-finals
As in Kiel and Bratislava, the semi-finals in Leverkusen also took place without any of the top eight players. Stephen Bunting, Danny Noppert and Chris Dobie lost their first games, Jan van Veen, Michael van Gerwen, Johnny Clayton and Wessel Neumann lost in the round of 16. Van Veen’s third-round duel with tournament winner Ratajski also served as a dress rehearsal for the two to meet at the World Matchplay next week. Only James Wade advanced to the round of 16 before meeting Sebastian Bialecki of Poland in the quarterfinals.
After a short summer break, the PDC European Tour will take place from 28 to 30 August. Hungarian Darts Prize at the MVM Dome in Budapest.