Belgium's World Cup of Darts campaign got off to a disastrous start in Frankfurt as the pairing of Mike De Decker and Dimitri Van den Bergh lost their opening group match 4-2 to Hong Kong. Despite De Decker averaging an impressive 106, his teammate Van den Bergh languished at a dreadful 66, leaving Belgium's hopes of advancing in serious jeopardy.
Hong Kong's Man Lok Leung and Lok Yin Lee produced a commendable performance, averaging over 87 and missing just five darts at a double. They strode confidently into a 2-0 lead after a hectic second leg where all four players missed darts to secure the leg. A 14-dart break clinically moved Hong Kong on the edge of glory, but Belgium mustered an attempted comeback. Hong Kong resisted the pressure and edged through to win, taking a huge leap towards qualification.
De Decker, the former World Grand Prix champion, was not feeling too down due to his own high level, but the same could not be said for his teammate. “I couldn’t do any more,” De Decker stated after the match. “With that average of Dimitri’s, it’s going to be tough. He also picked it up very poorly, which I already suspected and which is logical. Dimitri got away quickly, and that’s not his usual style. There’s little we can do about it. You win with two and you lose with two. I did manage to get through it after the second leg, with consistent 100 or 85 and a few 140s. I thought: ‘If I can keep this up, maybe I can pull Dimitri along.’ However, that wasn’t the case.”
Van den Bergh admitted the performance summed up his season. “This pretty much sums up my season. Generally speaking, I’m not throwing too badly,” he said. “I feel that things have been running much better with those shorter points for the past week or two. I feel much more consistency in training—and this was my first tournament with this—and look at my average.” Despite the result, De Decker remains optimistic about his own form. “I just feel that the results are coming for me. After a year and a half of searching and frustrations, it’s about time. I feel it. It just needs to come out more consistently; that inconsistency has to go.”
Belgium now face a must-win match against Slovenia, the other team in Group B, to stand any chance of advancing. Even a win would require Slovenia to pull off a result against Hong Kong in the evening, leaving all three teams on three points and leg difference to decide the group.
