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Darts Star Reveals Shocking Details Of Van Gerwen Clash Before His Embarrassing Defeat
Michael van Gerwen was humbled after teasing one of his darts rivals earlier this season.
Kim Huybrechts has detailed a fiery altercation with Michael van Gerwen before their two nations’ showdown at the World Cup of Darts last month. Huybrechts ended up having the last laugh as his Belgium team demolished Van Gerwen’s crop of Dutch stars.
Tension between Belgian players Huybrechts and Dimitri van den Bergh was a major talking point before they teamed up at the World Cup. They pledged to act professionally at the tournament and put their long-running feud to one side.
Van Gerwen stirred the pot at a Players Championship event before the World Cup, as Huybrechts explained on the Double Top podcast: “We had a few words. So he suddenly said, ‘Hey Kim, who are you going to play with at the World Cup of Darts? I heard they don’t want to throw with you.’
“Mike De Decker and Dimitri Van den Bergh were also there and given the strained relations, that was not a nice situation.” Smiling and laughing as he recounted the story, Huybrechts joked that a jibe about Belgium’s Qatar World Cup defeat to Morocco in 2022 nearly pushed him over the edge.
“It didn’t stop there,” he continued. “‘You have been beaten up by Moroccans, by children,’ (Van Gerwen said). Now, I sometimes have a big mouth myself and I like some teasing, but this went a bit too far, I really did not like this.
“I even inquired with the PDC to file a complaint, but when they said I had to send an email for that I left it as it was, I didn’t feel like it. When the draw was done he asked me if I was angry with him.
“I told him I was not angry, but that at the World Cup of Darts he would feel what he had done. And so it happened, we then demolished them.”
The darts-mad Dutch were humiliated by Belgium with an 8-2 defeat in the round of 16. Huybrechts went on to lose in the semi-final against Rowby John Rodriguez as he and his countrymen were knocked out by Austria.
Van Gerwen brushed off his World Cup disappointment by putting together a superb run at the World Matchplay. The three-time world champion defeated teenage sensation Luke Littler in the opening round at Winter Gardens.
Joe Cullen, Andrew Gilding and Michael Smith were also cast aside by Van Gerwen before a gripping final against Luke Humphries went against the Dutchman, who lost 18-15 in Blackpool.
