“The first person who laughs is getting punched” - Vincent van der Voort sympathises with Jeffrey de Zwaan after on wrong end of comeback result

Vincent van der Voort empathised with Jeffrey de Zwaan after his painful Euro Tour defeat, where the Dutchman squandered a 5-0 lead and still lost 6-5 to Dave Chisnall. According to Van der Voort, that is one of the toughest scenarios a darts player can experience, as he once found himself in exactly the same situation.

The experienced North Hollander knows how it feels to let a match slip completely and speaks from experience when he says a loss like that can linger for a long time. “That’s really painful,” says Van der Voort on the Darts Draait Door podcast. “To go 5–0 up and lose 6–5 to Dave Chisnall—that hurts. I’ve experienced that myself. You feel terrible afterwards; it’s impossible to describe.”

Van der Voort clearly remembers how he once threw away an identical lead. It happened at a Euro Tour in Gibraltar, where he let a certain victory slip against Nathan Aspinall. “I was 5–0 up and lost 6–5,” he says. “It’s probably still on YouTube—but I’ve no desire to watch it back.”

He believes the danger lies precisely at the moment a player thinks the job is done. “At 5–0, you think you’re already there. Then it becomes 5–1—no problem. At 5–3, you start thinking, “This needs to finish now.” Before you know it, it’s 5–5. Then it becomes very difficult."

In the closing stages, Van der Voort saw the same thing happen to De Zwaan. Small misses pile up and confidence fades, even if the opponent isn’t applying extreme pressure. “The key is not to feel sorry for yourself, but to be angry that it happened—to make sure it never happens again. Because it really hurts, and you feel embarrassed walking off stage."

The former pro admits he struggled to control his emotions after his own defeat. “Walking into the practice room, I thought, 'The first person who laughs is getting punched.' Of course, I didn’t do that—but those thoughts go through your head,” he says.

Even after that, the feeling lingers for a long time, Van der Voort knows. “Luckily, someone had my bag ready and guided me straight back to the hotel. You just want to disappear. And then you get messages from people asking, “How did that happen?”—which doesn’t help.”

According to Van der Voort, it’s important that a player doesn’t wallow in self-pity after such a defeat, but instead uses the anger to come back stronger. “Accept it and move on. Use it as motivation. He’s rebuilding, so he needs to put in the work—training, maybe even gym work—and really push himself. This is the moment to step up."

For De Zwaan, the defeat comes at a difficult time, as he’s still working to get back to his old level. “He doesn’t play the Euro Tour that often and has to qualify each time,” says Van der Voort. “So he really needs to take his chances when he gets them. That makes a loss like this even harder, because a win over someone like Chisnall could have given him a great opportunity in the next round.”

Van der Voort believes De Zwaan has the talent, but sometimes needs to push himself to bring it out. “With Jeffrey, we all know he needs to get going. He’s not someone who can easily switch it on by himself—it almost needs to be forced out of him. But that’s exactly what would benefit him now: putting in the work and really committing to it.”