INTERVIEW | "I'm going to the World Championship to win it" - Ricardo Pietreczko raring to go for Ally Pally title tilt

After a spectacular World Championship debut last year, Ricardo Pietreczko will return to the Ally Pally as one of the German hopefuls at the 2025 World Darts Championship.

Media representatives such as Dartsnews.com had the opportunity to interview the 30-year-old at a PDC Europe press conference in the run-up to the World Championship. Pietreczko summed up his past season, spoke about his hand injury and formulated an ambitious World Championship goal;

"Stage good, floor poor" - this is Pietreczko's assessment of the past 12 months, in which he impressed several times at the Major tournaments, but was hardly able to celebrate any successes at the floor events of the Players Championship Series. "I actually don't know what the difference in my performance is because I always play the same," says Pikachu.

Despite a mixed year on the PDC circuit, the German is full of self-confidence heading to the Ally Pally: "I always say that I go to a tournament to win it - the same applies to the World Championship. If I set myself the goal of maybe reaching the third round and then bowing out, then I don't even need to go there." On his way to the big dream of winning the World Championship title, Pikachu wants to benefit from the experience of his World Championship debut last year. "I'll probably be a bit more relaxed and not as extremely nervous as last year. Of course, I'm expecting some German fans again, so I want to perform," says Pietreczko ambitiously.

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The German also delivered a spectacular performance at last year's World Darts Championship, when he came close to defeating the eventual world champion Luke Humphries at 3-1 in the sets. "I always jokingly say that I would have been world champion if I had won that match. But of course it's a career boost when you almost beat Luke Humphries at the World Championships. It gave me a real boost, which you could see from the fact that I went straight through to the semi-finals at the first European Tour event of the season."

One set away from a sensation: Pietreczko was just three legs short of beating Humphries at the 2024 World Championships

Pietreczko will open his World Championship campaign this year in the evening session on December 17. To kick things off, Pikachu will face the Chinese qualifier Xiaochen Zong. "I believe that no player should be underestimated at the World Championship because all participants have earned their qualification. But normally this task shouldn't be too much of a problem, so I can already look ahead," says the 30-year-old.

In a possible second round match on December 23, Pietreczko would face one of the hottest stocks on the PDC Pro Tour, Gian van Veen. For large parts of last year, Pietreczko was among the top 32 on the Order of Merit and would therefore have started the World Championship as a seeded player in round two. However, the surprising Major performances of players such as Ritchie Edhouse, Martin Lukeman and Mike De Decker, among others, saw the German slip to 34th place. "But I quickly put that behind me and am no longer concerned with it," Pikachu clarifies;

Instead of dwelling on the past, Pietreczko prefers to focus on preparing for his second PDC World Championship in the present. "Basically, I'm practising more than ever before and playing a lot of tournaments on my Scolia, but I don't have a fixed plan or rhythm for it. Today I got up and played a bit of Grand Turismo on my Playstation. If I feel like it, I'll go straight to the board, if not, I'll play a bit more," says a relaxed Pietreczko, who is also relying on an unusual schedule this year: "Shortly before the World Championship, I'm taking part in a major soft-tip tournament near Frankfurt. I'll be playing there on December 13 and 14 and then my flight to England leaves on the 15th. That worked well last year with the exact same tournament, so I'm doing it again," explains Pietreczko, who is known for his hard work and participation in regional and national tournaments.

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Even Pietreczko's injury worries, which put him out of action towards the end of the last European Tour season and forced the German to give up his round of 16 match against Ross Smith at the Hungarian Darts Trophy, will not disrupt Pikachu's training and tournament schedule: "Experts looked at the injury, but couldn't find out where the pain came from either. In any case, everything is fine now."

The dream of the World Cup of Darts

During the press conference, Pietreczko not only spoke about the upcoming World Championship, but also looked ahead to the 2025 season. As Gabriel Clemens has 100,000 pounds in prize money to defend at this year's World Championship, there could be a changing of the guard in the German team at the World Cup of Darts 2025. According to the Live Order of Merit, which already takes into account the loss of prize money from the 2025 World Cup of Darts, Pietreczko would overtake Clemens to become the new German number two and compete in the PDC World Team Championship together with Martin Schindler: "I actually have that in the back of my mind a bit because my goal is to play the World Cup of Darts once. Forming a team with Martin, who like me comes from Berlin and the surrounding area, would be quite something."

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