For the first time in his career,
Martin Schindler achieved victory on the Alexandra Palace stage, impressively dispatching Martin Lukeman 3-1 to reach the third round at the
PDC World Darts Championship.
A brilliant win for the Wall is made all the more impressive when you take into account the circumstances surrounding Schindler's preparation over the last few days. "It's not been an easy situation for me just to get here. Our first flight was cancelled, then we got a second one which was easy but our luggage didn't arrive," he explains. "I travel with my manager, he got his suitcase, but I still haven't."
2022 has been a year of progress for the German number 2. Entering the World Championships as a seeded player for the first time, Schindler is up to 29 in the world rankings. "It's been such a great year," he says. "I've got married, I have a child now it's been very good but I need to work hard to keep the levels and get even better so I'm not going to relax on the success of this year."
In round three Schindler has the unenviable task of facing the World number 4, Michael Smith. A positive for Schindler is that reportedly around 25% of ticket sales for that session have gone to Germans. "If there are like 750 German fans it's going to be absolute madness but it doesn't matter what the fans are going to do. In the end, I'm going to have to play my game, if not I'm going to lose to Michael Smith I know that."