Michael van Gerwen and Gian van Veen survived a scare on Saturday at the World Cup of Darts, defeating Sweden to advance. Speaking to the media including DartsNews.com, the Dutch pair reflected on their performance and fired a warning to the German fans ahead of their next battle against the home heroes.
“I think it was okay and here and there I think we played some good darts. After that, because we started missing a few doubles, they started to give them a little bit of confidence. You saw them growing into the game as well with a 155 finish, Oskar (Lukasiak) with nearly a double nine and then a double 14 on the end and then it gives him confidence as well. But I have to admit Jeffrey (de Graaf) played a phenomenal game but overall I think there was only one winner and that was us,” said Van Gerwen. “Sometimes you want to do more, you put yourself unnecessarily under pressure but yeah, who cares at the end of the day? We won and that's the only thing that matters.”
Van Veen, playing with Van Gerwen for the first time, added: “Yeah, for me 100%. When I saw Northern Ireland win the first game against Belgium, that's a nice way to start the tournament and that's what we did today. We were put under pressure, especially Michael with a couple of finishes. When he put on the pressure, he took them out and I think that's very much more confidence going into tomorrow. And I think tomorrow we're going to be under so much different pressure. Today we were, of course, first game, different pressure but we dealt with it well and I think tomorrow we're going to be playing way better than today.”
Van Gerwen, who won in Copenhagen last week, dismissed any carryover confidence: “I think we can't compare things like that with this tournament. This tournament is totally different. I've never played with Gian before but of course tournaments always help. I also like this tournament and it's the first time now in this format as well for me. It's a new thing and I'm looking forward to tomorrow and I hope we can do even better tomorrow.”
Looking ahead to facing Germany, Van Gerwen warned the home crowd: “To play Germany is going to be a tough one as well. But if you look at capability, what we are capable of when we're there, I think there can only be one winner. But with pressure, crowds, everything, things can get different. We need a good night's rest and prepare really well for tomorrow and then I think we can do some damage tomorrow. I've dealt with it so many times before. I don't have to deal with it. They have to deal with me. That's different. They have to keep shouting against me. The throat is going to hurt.”
