"I didn't have to do that dance anymore" - No more 'Dancing Dimi' as Dimitri Van den Bergh explains decision to change walk on song

Dimitri Van den Bergh was in action at the Dutch Darts Masters last weekend. Although the 30-year-old Belgian was soundly defeated by Luke Littler in his first match, he did catch some headlines by entering the stage with a new walk on song.

Van den Bergh no longer entered the stage to the tones of "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, but rather to "Play Hard" by David Guetta. The signature dance was also gone. "Like everyone else, didn't you see it coming? Haha, surprise! No, seriously. It's effectively been with my whole entourage searching for new things. We did that collectively and I wanted a new song in particular. I was done with 'Happy' and the dancing, that wasn't appreciated anymore. It's about going on stage and having fun, enjoying what I'm doing. That's darts, my sport for which I work tremendously hard and sacrifice tremendously. So I wanted to enjoy myself again on stage and in between maybe also mature a bit," Van den Bergh told Het Nieuwsblad.

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"Everyone on the scene was immediately like, 'Yeah, that's got something and that's a top disc!' And I felt the same here. It wasn't immediately about how the crowd reacted. Of course you want the fans to join in because darts remains a party, but it was mostly about my feeling about it before I would throw my darts. And it felt successful for me personally," the Belgian continues. "It made me happier than my previous song. I didn't have to do that dance anymore, I could just have fun with the room. There will always be movement here and there, but from now on it's about liking what I do. And that worked out."

Dimitri Van den Bergh lost 6-4 to Luke Littler in the opening round of the Dutch Darts Masters

Van den Bergh also played at the Dutch Darts Masters for the first time with a new set-up of his Target darts. He also throws with K-Flex flights, which Littler also plays with.

"I have to 'play hard.' I have a long future ahead of me, with goals I want to achieve," Van den Bergh said. "I want to realize dreams. So today was an excellent test for my new set-up. I started training with that after my defeat at the World Cup, so it was a question mark here how that would translate during a match. In training it regularly went great, that I thought, 'Amai, if I can do this in a match...'. But just as often less so, that I was like, 'If this happens during a match I'm going to be embarrassed.' But look, I gave myself three months with those flights and today was a good start."

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"The first two legs I was too nervous because I was still unsure about it," he adds. "But after that it went much better and for my feeling it's coming along well, because I put in the necessary time and have already put in the necessary time. I notice there is work to do, but that's not a bad thing. I gave the world champion a hard time, I kept fighting and I stood there feeling comfortable. Let's keep next week coming."

Despite his defeat in the opening round of the Dutch Darts Masters, Van den Bergh is beaming. "This year has already started positively for me. I already talked about it with my sports psychologist: we want relaxation during effort. I felt that here. I was down 0-2, but then I came back with, among other things, an eleven darter, the 180s started to run ... Now it's a matter of getting my self-confidence back up and that takes time. But I'm happy, looking forward to the Winmau World Masters, how it went here. I wasn't thrown off the board by Littler, I was able to throw doubles at important moments... I feel positive, with that I can move forward."

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