"I've never celebrated that much in my life": Sheer relief for Dirk van Duijvenbode with win after injury nightmare

Dirk van Duijvenbode let out a huge roar of sheer relief more than anything as he took down Ryan Searle to set up a clash with Nathan Aspinall in the Last 16 of the 2024 Masters. A first win in some time for Van Duijvenbode who has battled with a shoulder injury.

Van Duijvenbode who has looked visibly in pain on stage for a long time said that he has been working hard off the oche and now has more mobility in his shoulder than ever before and that he is glad to get towards where he wants to be with his early win.

"Happy I can finally throw normal darts. At the end, it's still not the performance I wanted. There are some decent moments in there and some 180's when I needed them. I'm buzzing that with all the hard work I'm getting close to where I want to be. I've never celebrated that much in my life," he said to Online Darts.

"It's been a hard four months, but it's been a four months where you only play the best players in the world so when you're not performing well, you don't beat them. It means a lot."

"I was with my doctor just before I left and he said it's looking good. I can do shoulder presses now, I couldn't do it at all. I couldn't even raise my arm past like 75 degrees. Now I can strengthen. This helps and motivates a lot."

"It's a very good motivation towards what we're working on. Being honest, I hope in a month or two months I just hope that I'm done with the injury at all."