Florian Hempel stars on the Ally Pally stage again to overcome Jeffrey de Zwaan at the World Darts Championship

In a high quality contest, Florian Hempel has emerged victorious over Jeffrey de Zwaan 3-1, this Friday evening at the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship, setting up a second round tie with 'SuperChin' Daryl Gurney.

In an epic start to the match, both players fired 180s in each of the first two legs. Both those first two legs went with the darts, before Hempel took the first break of the contest in leg 3 to nudge infront. Despite some scruffy doubling in the next leg, Hempel held firm to secure the opening set on double 7 and move one set to the good.

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After winning the opening leg of the opening set, De Zwaan had been railroaded by Hempel's powerful scoring and in the second set, the German took full control. Although, De Zwaan hadn't scored badly himself, his doubling was a little lacking, allowing Hempel to race through the set in three straight legs, doubling his lead and moving one set away from keeping to his record of never having lost in the opening round at the Alexandra Palace.

De Zwaan finally stopped the rot in the opening leg of set 3, hitting his 5th 180 of the contest en route to a solid hold of throw. Hempel kept the pressure on by responding with a hold of his own in leg 2 and after De Zwaan made it 2-1 in the set, Hempel then looked set to force it into a decider. After the German spurned multiple darts at a double though, De Zwaan punished to get a set on the board at 2-1 down.

As De Zwaan pushed his average up over the 102 mark, he took control early in set 4 too, breaking the Hempel throw in the first leg. With both players seemingly doing their best to lose the next leg their averages took a hit. Eventually though, Hempel took it on double 3 for a 23 dart break. Having taken the leg though, the German seemed reignited, holding throw in style with a 120 to go one leg from the second round. After De Zwaan then missed three darts to keep himself alive, Hempel pinned double 10 with his first matchdart to take the victory.

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