"This is severely disappointing" - Jeffrey de Zwaan now set for Q-School after disappointing Hempel loss

Jeffrey de Zwaan failed to qualify for the second round of the World Darts Championship on Friday night. 'The Black Cobra' went down 3-1 in his opening match against German Florian Hempel. More bad news for De Zwaan is that he has lost his PDC Tour Card. If he wants to regain it, he will have to pass Q-School early next year.

At 94.36, De Zwaan averaged about two points higher than his opponent. At times, therefore, he showed his scoring ability. "But I missed too many doubles and the chances I got I just didn't take. Especially those seven missed darts for a 2-0 lead in the fourth set hurt a lot. This is a big bummer," De Zwaan said.

Read also

Florian Hempel stars on the Ally Pally stage again to overcome Jeffrey de Zwaan at the World Darts Championship

In the first set, De Zwaan even threw above a hundred average. "But what does that mean these days? If you want to win a match, you have to be able to do that over the whole match, with me it's too inconsistent anyway. It takes more and I couldn't bring that today. This is particularly disappointing."

Jeffrey de Zwaan has lost his PDC Tour Card

Heavy opponent

De Zwaan, however, had prepared well. "I knew Florian would be a tough opponent, he always performs well at the World Championship. On the one hand, during the match I sometimes felt I was playing reasonably, but he missed almost nothing especially in the first two sets and I just couldn't hurt him."

The 28-year-old Dutchman attended the World Darts Championship for the first time since 2021. "But I didn't enjoy it at all," he said. "Had I won, I'm sure I would have thought differently about it, but now only the negative is weighing on me. I disappointed myself tremendously."