Joe Cullen impressed with a 103 average as he brushed aside Martin Schindler 6-1 in the first round of the Belgian Darts Open. The highlight of Cullen's performance came when he took out 142 to go 4-0 and all-but end Schindler's chances.
Cullen is out of the seeding positions for the first time in a while due to the revamped qualification criteria for European Tour events in 2024. The top 16 players in the main Order of Merit now qualify, but it is the best 16 players from the ProTour rankings that are seeded for the second round.
De Decker delights raucous home crowd
Mike De Decker came through a thriller of a first round clash as he beat Chris Landman in a last-leg decider to delight his home crowd. De Decker won with a 14-dart hold in the decider, after Landman took out 113 the leg before.
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'The Real Deal' found himself 4-2 down at one point, but battled through with vocal support behind him. It was the most emotion we have seen from De Decker, who wanted to put on a show in his home country. He will hope to ride the crest of a wave when he takes on recent Premier League night finalist Michael Smith on Saturday evening.
The Belgian crowd were quickly stunned into silence as they were denied a second home winner of the night as Gabriel Clemens whitewashed Jeroen Caron. Clemens had an average of 102 and was 60% on the doubles.
The 'German Giant' has only won one match so far in 2024, but everything seemed to click on the stage for him as he opened with legs of 13, 15, 13 and 14 darts, with Caron offering little to no resistance. Clemens will now face Gerwyn Price in round two and will hope to do what compatriot Martin Schindler did last week at the UK Open and give the Welshman another early exit from a tournament.
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