02/08/2024

“It didn’t feel good being tenth”: Mike de Decker had inner motivation fuelling fire in maiden ProTour win

Mike De Decker secured his first PDC senior title with a brilliant performance at Players Championship 16 on Thursday. In the final of that tournament, De Decker was 8-2 too strong for Ricky Evans.

De Decker reached his second quarterfinal of 2024 on Wednesday, but 24 hours later proved he could do even better. 'The Real Deal' smoothly survived the first three rounds of Players Championship 16 with wins over Robbie Knops (6-2), Jose de Sousa (6-1) and Dave Chisnall (6-2) for a spot in the last sixteen. This was followed by hard-fought wins over Danny van Trijp (6-4), Brendan Dolan (6-5) and Karel Sedlacek (7-5) for his second Pro Tour final spot.

Mike de Decker is the Real Deal: Belgian brilliance with first Players Championship title in Ricky Evans thumping

In the final against Evans, De Decker shot out of the starting blocks. A 15-darter and two 13-darters gave him a 3-0 lead before Evans put himself on the scoreboard with a 16-darter. De Decker then brought the margin right back to a three-leg difference with an 18-darter.

Decker then fired in a 12-darter and 13-darter to make it 6-1. Evans responded with a 15-darter for 6-2, but De Decker hit another 15-darter right after that and needed only one more leg to win. He had no nerves and decided the match with a 14-darter, bringing his average to 104.87.

De Decker was overjoyed that he managed to pull off the victory. ''I've been in a final of a Players Championship before and lost to Rob Cross, and it's taken a while for me to get over the winning line.''

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The Belgian had traveled to Milton Keynes motivated. Earlier this week this website published a list of the ten best darters ever from Belgium. On that list De Decker ended up in tenth place.

"There was an article this week that came out with the top players from Belgium in history and I was tenth - it didn't feel good being tenth! I came here this week - yesterday I had a quarter-final and now I won a tournament - hopefully they change the list now!"

"Finally I can say I won something!" he added. "I've grown up, taken the game more seriously [and] started to practice more, taken it more professionally and finally it pays off. Hopefully the next step is [to win] a European Tour."