Gian van Veen battled hard to take down Andrew Gilding 6-4 and reach the second round of the European Championship, where he now faces Luke Woodhouse. Afterwards, the defending champion admitted he isn't thinking about it as a title defence. "You know, everyone's talking about defence, but I don't see it that way," Van Veen told the media, including DartsNews. "Of course, that's what it's spoken about, but for me it's just another tournament. That's how I'm treating it as well. At least that's what I said myself. But as soon as you're on that stage, you don't want to go out first round. Luckily, I didn't. Andrew, he put me under pressure every leg and he missed a couple of darts."
Van Veen acknowledged the fine margins in the match. "I took my chances. If he would have hit that 70 to go 5-0, it would have been a totally different game. But yeah, as you said, the defence is up and running." He also revealed he only learned after the game about previous champions losing in the first round. "As you said, short format, that always puts a bit more pressure onwards. But after the game, I was told about the previous champions lost in the first round. Luckily, I didn't know that before the game. Because it would have been extra pressure on myself. But it's nice to break the curse. But yeah, as you said, short format, always different pressure. Especially on a major. But now we go back to 19. I think that would have helped my game as well. Even though it's against a trickier opponent, against Luke. But it's something I'm looking forward to. And yeah, thankfully, I got this one out of the way."
Van Veen also discussed his recent switch to Winmau, explaining it is technically an in-house change as Red Dragon is owned by Nodor under the same group as Winmau, so he can still use the old equipment for now. "Old flights. You even saw Red Dragon on my stems tonight as well. I've been playing with them for the past three, four years. And I'm going to be switching to Winmau stems, Winmau flights, Winmau. A little bit different dart. Not where I'm holding it, but just visually a little bit different in the future. But for now, even though we got announced past Tuesday, two days later, we're here in the first round of a major. So this didn't seem like, for me, a good time of switching, especially with this one. Then the Grand Slam, Players Championship Finals, and then, of course, the Worlds. So we'll see in the next couple of weeks, maybe even after the Worlds. But, you know, that's the benefit of having a transfer in-house. Winmau doesn't mind me playing with Red Dragon stuff. So that's good for me. And, you know, as long as I'll get good results and win a lot of games, everyone will be happy."
Asked if he has ever lost confidence in his game, Van Veen pointed to his equipment switch during the Premier League. "I think you saw it during the Premier League when I switched my darts. That's just evidence of a player losing confidence in his own ability and his own equipment. And, you know, I switched darts and as soon as I was like, okay, this is going well, but not as I wanted to. I switched back and I was like, okay, now keep your head down. Because even though we were back in May, June back then, you know the back end of the year is going to be very important. So that was all about getting back into confidence, even after the operation. And I think that's what I've done. As you said, the World Matchplay, even though I didn't play my best there, I still got the semi-final. And that gave me so much more confidence going into the back end of this year. The last European Tour, even though I didn't win any of them, got to a lot of semi-finals, a lot of quarter-finals, played some really good darts. And that gave me so much confidence going into the majors, back end of this year, even this tournament. I think tonight was a decent game, not the best, but I still got the job done. And I think that's what matters most."
Van Veen also recounted his record average on the European Tour, hitting 120.24 in Maastricht, and admitted it nearly didn't happen. "That was the aim. No, no, no. You know, as soon as I went up on stage, just win this game. Then I started at 12, like 12, 13, 13. Then at 11, I looked on the screen. I started at like 134, 180. And I walked back and even I was looking at my girlfriend like, what is happening here? What am I doing? And then I looked on the screen and saw in the corner of my eye, 126 average. And I was like, oh, please don't screw this up. And then I hit a 60 and I was like, oh, that's me done. But, you know, if I didn't look up on the screen, I would be 100% in my focus I would have finished at 187 in six darts and I would have hit like 123-something average. But I didn't. But, you know, if I'm complaining about something like that while still averaging 120, I think that shows where my game is at the moment."
He continued: "Finishing has been going really well the past couple of months, but scoring is a bit lacking here and there. But as soon as that clicks as well, I can be very dangerous. And that showed in that game. But, yeah, I wish I could do that every game. But, you know, as a top 16, maybe top 8 player, you have those 10, 15 minutes where just everything clicks and everything goes. You just look at the treble and it's going in. And, yeah, luckily for me, that 10 minutes happened to be on stage."
Van Veen also touched on superstitions and a technical issue he is working to fix. "It can be difficult because, you know, as a dart player, we're all superstitious. Even though everyone says we're not, we all are. And so it's probably going to be difficult to just switch to a little bit difference. But, yeah, as I said, for me, when I switch over to a new barrel, it's only going to be visual. Wherever I hold the dart, wherever I hold my finger on the dart, it won't be any different to the darts I'm playing with now. And that's the easy part of switching from Red Dragon to Winmau because it's the same people. They don't care if I play with, like, the RD logo or the W logo on my dart. So as long as I get good results. But, yeah, as I said, I'm also a little bit superstitious. So it might be a little bit weird for myself at the start, but I'll get used to it. And for me, it's just about finding the right time to switch over and don't do it, like, in a rush. And especially don't do it before my first World Championship game."
On the technical adjustment, he added: "At start, it was a lot of it. A lot of it was down to changing that and just keeping my body more upright and a lot more still during the game. But I noticed the last couple of weeks I've let it slip a little bit, even though I don't want to. But I've noticed myself lifting my left leg up again and it's something I don't want, but it's part of my game and I've been doing it for the past 15 years, so it's difficult to adjust. But I think because I did it at the first weekend at Antwerp, it gave me confidence going into the rest of the year and the next tournaments. And even though I'm switching a little bit back, it's still going well, but it's something I'm definitely working on even behind the scenes at home and also in the practice room. But once you're on that stage, you don't want to think about that too much. You just want to perform well. And if I hit a 180 left-handed, or an upper arm, I don't care. As long as I hit a 180, then I'm happy."
