Geert Nentjes pre-UK Open Interview: "I’m just going to enjoy it and make it a great weekend"

We spoke to Nentjes about qualifying for the UK Open, facing a Riley's qualifier in his round 2 game as well as Q-School and his future ambitions.
Read other interviews with Matthew Edgar, Corey Cadby, Chris Dobey & Lee Evans ahead of the tournament beginning tomorrow
1. Thanks for agreeing to do an interview Geert, first of all how did you get into darts growing up??
I started 5 years ago after watching the PDC World Championship and bought myself a dartboard and darts and started practising. I didn’t immediately hit a 180 because I was really bad in the beginning but I really loved the game and practised a lot and that made me better and better and after two years I started to play national and international tournaments.
2. One of the main reasons for this interview is to discuss the UK Open, how does it feel to qualify for the first time and are you looking forward to the experience??
I really didn’t have a lot of hope to qualify for the UK Open because the standard of those qualifiers is so high and I had to play my best game to win some matches. I played some good matches at the Q school so that gave me some confidence to play the qualifiers, but I knew I had to play better than I did on the Q school. I don’t know how but that happened, at the first qualifier I felt great and didn’t put any pressure on myself. When I won 6-2 from James Wilson, it gave me a lot of confidence and I was thinking like maybe I could actually qualify myself. I reached the last 32 on the first day and knew that I only had to reach the last 64 ones in five qualifiers to make sure I’m qualified. The next day I played Joe Cullen at the last 128 and I beat him 6-5 to qualify and that felt really amazing, I was over the moon with my win. I won the next match but then I started to play to relaxed, I wasn’t nervous anymore and started to miss more doubles. But I was so happy to qualify that it didn’t bothered me anymore, I was already looking forward to the UK open and I can’t wait to play my first match.
3. You enter in at round 2 against a Riley’s qualifier, what do you make of your draw and do you think a good run could be on the cards a result??
If you play at the UK Open I think you can play some proper darts and you really must play well to win a Riley’s qualifier. So, I must play my best game to win my first match, but my goal is to show some good darts like I did on the qualifiers. For me it’s all about the experience and if I could win some matches that would just be a big bonus. I’m not going to put any pressure on my back, I’m just going to enjoy it and make it a great weekend.
4. You failed to get your tour card at Q-School in Hildesheim recently, were you gutted to miss out and what did you make of the standard??
I actually didn’t play the Q school for a tourcard but because the rules have changed this year you had to play Q school to play at the euro tour qualifiers and UK open qualifiers. Next year I hopefully will graduate from school so I can really put my focus on the darts. But my focus now is to finish school first and if I would have won a tourcard that would actually have made it really difficult to finish school in time, so I wasn’t gutted to miss out on a tourcard. I played really well on the Q school and lost 3 out of 4 times from eventual tour card winners so I was happy with my game and happy to qualify for the UK open qualifiers.
5. You have competed a lot on the development tour, what do you make of that route for gaining experience and would you recommend it to up and coming players??
I would really recommend it for up and coming players because it is a great way to gain experience. Only to play there would already give you more confidence because the tournaments and the organisation is so much more professional than what you are used to if you have never played a PDC tournament.
6, Finally what would you say are your darting ambitions for the next year and your career as a whole??
My hope for this year is to have a good run on the Development Tour and maybe qualify myself for some euro tours to gain some experience on the stage. Next year I’ll hopefully finish school and then I will try to earn myself a tourcard and try to make it as a professional. But I can’t do this all without the help of my sponsor seaVsat, so I really have to thank them for supporting me financially.
Interview conducted by Samuel Gill, writer for Dartsnews.com