Preview PDC Europe Super League - Group C: Can Max Hopp put himself back in the spotlight?

From 7 to 10 November, 24 German darters will compete in the PDC Europe Super League in Bitburg, Germany, for a place at the PDC World Championships at Alexandra Palace.

The tournament starts with four groups of six players. During the first two tournament days, players play twice against the other players in their group. After these matches, the two worst-performing players drop out. The remaining 16 players continue in a knockout format. The last sixteen will take place on 9 November, after which the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final will be played consecutively on 10 November.

Recently, the draw was made for this event. In this article, we take a look at the players in Group C. This pool consists of Dragutin Horvat, Max Hopp, Franz Roetzsch, Christopher Toonders, Dominik Gruellich and Arno Merk.

The biggest name in this pool is, of course, Max Hopp. He held a PDC Tour Card from 2015 to 2022, competed in the World Darts Championship eight times from 2013 to 2021 and became youth world champion at the PDC in 2015. From 2023, Hopp no longer holds a Tour Card. This year, 'The Maximiser' was in action on the Challenge Tour, but Hopp failed to reach the quarter-finals there.

Hopp will face competition in his pool from the likes of Dragutin Horvat. The 47-year-old German has been a regular in the knockout stages of the PDC Europe Super League since 2016. From 2016 to 2019, he even reached the final four times in five editions. Only in 2016 did Horvat actually manage to win the event.

Franz Roetzsch is no stranger either. He played three times on the Euro Tour in the past and was also in action on the Challenge Tour this year. There, a semi-final place was the highlight.

21-year-old Christopher Toonders asserted himself early this year by winning the first event of the PDC Development Tour 2023. In the remaining 23 Development Tour tournaments, Toonders made it to the quarterfinals four more times. Dominik Gruellich and Arno Merk are the more unknown players in this group. They managed to qualify for the PDC Europe Super League via the qualification tournaments.