Sporting Life
Michael van Gerwen and Gerwyn Price (Picture: Lawrence Lustig/PDC)
Michael van Gerwen and Gerwyn Price (Picture: Lawrence Lustig/PDC)

Gerwyn Price and Michael van Gerwen eye European Tour glory for different reasons, writes Paul Nicholson

By Paul Nicholson
Darts
Sun February 27, 2022 · 4y ago

The European Tour season gets under way this weekend with the International Darts Open and Paul Nicholson assesses the key issues.

Welcome back!

I am just happy to have the European Tour played early in the season. That hasn’t happened since the event in Belgium two years ago, which was won by Gerwyn Price, and as things stand it looks like we’ll finally see a full calendar again.

We travelled to Belgium back then with no real insight as to what would happen with the world and instead we were excited about the tour going to a new country. Little did we know we wouldn’t be going to another event until that October!

There are obviously still challenges in central Europe but overall the excitement is huge and I can’t wait to watch the weekend’s action in Riesa unfold.

Price is right

This tournament is huge for Gerwyn Price because if he doesn’t reach the latter stages, he’s in big danger of losing his world number one spot.

Price is defending £25,000 having won the first European Tour event of the 2020 season and he’s only about £10,000 ahead of Peter Wright, who will also be a leading favourite for the title.

Despite the pressure, he’ll also be feeling bullet proof given how astonishingly well he played in last week’s Premier League – as well as the Pro Tour events before that which really helped him rediscover his top form.

Price also won the last two European Tour events last year which were staged in Budapest and Gibraltar, while he’s also triumphed in Riesa twice before and it’s probably his favourite European Tour venue with plenty of positive memories.

That said, Joe Cullen is the defending champion of this event – the International Darts Open – which was last staged in October 2020 and based on his current form, he’ll really fancy his chances too.

Iceman cooling the boos

There’s a lot of people who get on the bandwagon of booing Price, even in some European Tour events where the atmosphere is quite different to what we might see in the UK.

In Budapest last year the fans were on his back early on but were cheering for him by the end of the weekend – similarly to what happened to him during last week’s Premier League where his nine-dart finishes and breath-taking performances turned him into a crowd favourite.

Trying to work darts fans out isn’t easy at the best of times but ultimately Price deals with the Mr Controversial tag better than any other similar type of player in history. Myself and Peter Manley for example only won a single TV title each whereas Price keeps stacking them up!

People look at Price and are essentially jealous. He’s a good looking lad, vibrant and has a shed-load of talent at whatever he turns his hand to – whether that’s rugby, darts, snooker and possibly even boxing!

He’s what people want to be but can’t be. He’s almost too perfect, especially for a dart player, and this is what the British people want to tear down.

Price has never changed how he wants to be on stage to suit anyone else but if you sit down with him, he’s one of the boys and certainly not above himself.

MVG’s Euro vision

I think the player most looking forward to the start of this year’s European Tour is Michael van Gerwen because he used to win so many of its events, which ultimately helped him maintain confidence and title-winning momentum season after season.

It’s no coincidence that since the European Tour arena was taken away, his form went on a slide although we can’t ignore the fact that his titles had already started to dry up somewhat in the latter half of 2018.

He has lost two European Tour finals since then to Jose de Sousa and Joe Cullen so his performances haven’t been disastrous, but he has won 32 of these tournaments during his incredible career and that’s his benchmark.

MVG was so far ahead as world number one in those days, that he could afford to use the prize money picked up on the European Tour and major stages to pick and choose which Players Championship events he entered, enabling him to stay as fresh as possible and spend more time with his family which ultimately kept him in a happy place.

There haven’t been any events in the Netherlands for almost three years either, so that’s also going to take its toll.

The dream work life balance he held between 2013 and 2019 disappeared and instead he was having to put in more work on the practice board and in matches in a bid to win a lot less prize money than he was previously doing.

It was always his comfort blanket and when that was taken away he’s had to completely remodel his calendar, and it doesn’t suit him as well as before.

One title in Barnsley last year was never going to give him the same kind of confidence he’d get from winning multiple events on the European stage so there’s no doubt this could be the key to his revival.

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