"In the past I always put too much pressure on myself for the World Darts Championship" - Danny Noppert wants to go deep at Alexandra Palace this year

Danny Noppert starts the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship as the thirteenth seed. 'The Freeze' will take on the winner the of duel between Ryan Joyce and Darius Labanauskas in his opening match.

Noppert has never advanced beyond the last 32 at the PDC World Darts Championship, in 2017 though, he did manage to reach the final at the BDO World Championship at Lakeside, where he ultimately lost out to Glen Durrant. "I'm definitely looking forward to the World Championship," Noppert says to Sportnieuws.nl. "I'm in every way more relaxed than last year, after all I had just become a father. Now I'm more focused. In the past, I sometimes put a little too much pressure on myself before the Worlds and so I made things difficult for myself. In several matches I was also just too sloppy."

Noppert has had a consistent year, although he particularly regrets the European Championship, where he lost 11-10 to Jermaine Wattimena in the semifinals. "Before that semifinal I thought about winning the tournament, yes," Noppert admits. "Especially if you also saw that other semifinal between Ritchie Edhouse and Luke Woodhouse. Then I was basically the favourite to win the tournament. But of course those other players were there for a reason as well and had already knocked out several top players on their way to the semifinals. I was sick for a week after not winning the European Championship, but in the end you have to accept it and move on again."

As mentioned, Noppert will take on Ryan Joyce or Darius Labanauskas in his opening match at the World Darts Championship. "I do expect it to be Joyce," the Dutchman previews. "He has shown a lot of great things already this year and I realize it could be a tough match. It's not the biggest name, but I will have to play solid, also I'm going into that match as a favourite."

The 33-year-old Dutchman is also already looking ahead to next year. "I would love to win a European Tour tournament one day. I already played two finals and came really close to the title once, so hopefully next year I will succeed once," he concludes.