Ronny Huybrechts recently retired from the PDC circuit. 'The Rebel' looked back at his PDC World Darts Championship debut in 2014 on the 'Double Top' podcast. He was eagerly looking forward to the draw, but then his worst nightmare came true.
Both Huybrechts brothers, Kim and Ronny, were both in the draw for the 2014 PDC World Darts Championship. "My then manager Mac Elkin called me to tell me who I was drawn against. I didn't know anything yet and he told me 'Kim, you'll never believe this, you have to play against Ronny'. I had known Mac for a while and knew he liked to joke around, so of course I told him right away that I didn't believe any of it. But he persisted," recalled Kim Huybrechts. "Then I call Ronny to report the news. Ronny, too, didn't believe any of it at first, but eventually it turned out to be true."
"You're playing in your first World Darts Championship, then you hope for a top player, but then you get Kim," Ronny laughed. "You can redo a draw like that a thousand times over, never are you going to get that same draw."
Beforehand, the match between the two brothers was hugely hyped on TV stations. "But we absolutely didn't like that," says Ronny. "I don't like doing all those interviews beforehand anyway."
On top of that, there was an extra pigment to their World Championship match. "Kim could still qualify for the Premier League Darts. I certainly didn't hold back during the match, but when I missed an arrow to lead 2-0 in sets it does sit in the back of your mind for a moment that you can destroy his dream."
"That's only logical too," Kim adds. "Obviously neither of us would miss on purpose, we shouldn't and that would be match-fixing, but you're still brothers and it makes sense that during the match you do think about what the consequences of a defeat could be for your brother. For me, in any case, it was one of the mentally toughest matches of my career."
In the end, it was Kim that took the victory 3-1.