Florian Hempel is headed for a few exciting days. For the 33-year-old German, the stakes are high during the final two Players Championship tournaments of the season on Nov. 1 and 2.
Hempel is currently narrowly outside the qualifying spots for the Players Championship Finals (1,750-pound deficit) and the World Darts Championship (1,000-pound deficit). Hempel will need to qualify for at least one of these tournaments to retain his PDC Tour Card after this season.
The darter from Cologne is all too aware of what is at stake this week. ''It's important to finish the season well,'' he said in an interview on DAZN. ''I'm still in the race, but 1,000 pounds is hard to catch up with. You never really know what's going to happen. Everyone around you is playing along, too, of course. Maybe 1250 pounds could be enough if the rest don't pick up prize money.''
''But for the same, 3,500 pounds may prove insufficient if someone below me manages to record a tournament victory,'' he alluded to Radek Szaganski's title at Players Championship 27. In doing so, the Pole made a huge jump on the Pro Tour rankings, pushing other players down one spot.
So Hempel knows he has to go all out to reach his goal. "Of course it's incredibly difficult, but I'm going there with good form and good feelings. I will try to get as much out of it as possible.''
End of the year for the PDC ProTour! 🥸 Players Championship Tour's final 2 events Wed and Thu. Live coverage from every match EXLCLUSIVELY on DartConnect TV: tv.dartconnect.com/events/pdc ⏱️ Start time: 1pm GMT / 2pm CET / 8am USET #PDCProTour #ScoreTrackConnect
