Mike De Decker left the World Cup of Darts with Belgium’s quarter-final defeat still burning, but also with his clearest sign for some time that his own game is moving back in the right direction. Belgium’s 8-7 loss to defending champions Northern Ireland was a painful one. De Decker and Dimitri Van den Bergh led 4-1 and 5-2, had chances to move clear again, and still saw Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney escape in a deciding leg.
Van den Bergh was visibly hit by the defeat. De Decker also knew Belgium had let a major chance slip, but his own reaction was not built only around regret. “Such a shame,” De Decker said afterwards. “But I do have a good feeling. If you look at my last year and a half, then I think I threw reasonably well at this World Cup of Darts. Especially at the important moments, I was there.”
Belgium had the match where they wanted it before the interval. De Decker and Van den Bergh had control of the board, the scoreboard and the tempo, while Northern Ireland were being forced to chase. The defending champions found a route back after the break. Belgium still had chances, but the match slowly moved away from the position they had built. De Decker pointed to the finishes he produced under pressure, even as the deciding leg stayed in his mind. “I take out 80 at an important moment, as well as 62 and 77,” he said. “At the moments when it had to happen, I was there. Only that last leg sticks with me. Then I throw 57 and 60 or something like that. That is painful, especially on your own leg. In a match like that, you cannot put that right anymore.”
The break came at the wrong time for Belgium. They had been flowing before the interval, while Northern Ireland returned with more scoring pressure and began dragging the match back towards them. “The break broke our flow a little,” De Decker said. “I came back onto the stage with exactly the same feeling as before. Only the Northern Irish started throwing better. Dimitri then still had chances for 6-3 and later for 7-5. If those go in, you probably win the match. That happens. A shame, because despite the tough draw, we could have won here.”
For De Decker, Frankfurt was also a personal check on where his game stands. The Belgian number one has had an uneven spell, and the World Cup brought a different kind of pressure. “I did not really believe in it myself anymore either, if I am honest,” he admitted. “I have been in a position for a while where everything that can go against me seems to go against me. That is why I did not expect that we would still be standing here. But once we had got this far, of course I wanted to win.” His frustration after the Northern Ireland defeat was obvious, but so was the shift in tone around his own darts. “Overall, things were good for me and we will build on that,” he said. “I feel much more comfortable than I have felt at any point over the past eighteen months. This was even my weakest match of the three I played here, but I actually did not throw a bad match. That is the most important thing for me.” The schedule now takes him back to the floor, with two Players Championship events next on the calendar and ranking money available. “I can go into those straight away with confidence to score pounds,” De Decker said. “This tournament was a good barometer of where I stand. Of course this defeat hurts, but I am mainly pleased that I have been able to show again what I can do. I take a lot of confidence from that.”
