“How can you be so sharp one week and a week later it doesn’t happen again?” – Recurring inconsistency raises questions about Van Gerwen

At the 2026 World Cup of Darts, Michael van Gerwen again showed flashes of his old level at times. With strong play, he and Gian van Veen managed to reach the final for the Netherlands. A week later, however, he chose to skip two more Players Championships and was much less impressive at the first edition of the Slovak Darts Open.

Vincent van der Voort remains baffled by this and says that, this way, it will be difficult for him to ever return to his peak level.

The Dutchman started this month excellently with a title at the Nordic Darts Masters and a runner-up spot at the World Cup. However, these were tournaments that did not earn him money for the PDC Order of Merit, and therefore do not carry as much weight.

Ranking events are particularly important for Van Gerwen right now, given that he has a lot of prize money to defend and wants to avoid a big drop in the world rankings. That is precisely why Van der Voort cannot understand at all that his good friend is skipping so many floor events this year.

He was absent again last week as well, although this time he had a good reason. “There wasn’t much he could do about this. He had an infection and that all had to be taken care of, so he really couldn’t help it,” Van der Voort explained in the latest episode of the Darts Draait Door podcast. “But it’s about the full picture. And yes, the numbers don’t lie.”

After recovering, Van Gerwen did appear at the Slovak Darts Open. However, he failed to impress there. ‘Mighty Mike’ scraped past Krzysztof Ratajski with the greatest difficulty, before losing in the last 16 to Andrew Gilding. “With Van Gerwen you again think: ‘How is it that you were so sharp last week, getting into your rhythm so quickly each time and playing with a certain drive, and now it’s not happening?’” Van der Voort wonders.

“Especially that mindset, that attitude, that over-my-dead-body mentality to win. Yes, he showed up again at the World Cup, and that really was the old Van Gerwen. And you just don’t notice that on the Euro Tour this past weekend. And of course it wasn’t ideal that the Dutch national team played at the World Cup on Saturday evening, right before his match. That’s not ideal.”

Still, according to Van der Voort, the latter can never be an excuse for Van Gerwen to underperform at a tournament. He believes the three-time world champion simply has to be tougher on himself. “You still need to be professional enough. You just have to keep doing your job.”