Van der Voort analyses current state of darting elite: “Many top players have very little understanding of darts”

Vincent van der Voort has been around in the darts world for over 20 years. In the process, the 46-year-old Dutchman is known for his sharp opinions.

Van der Voort is also already thinking about his life after darts. "In about six years' time it will be nice. I've always had a little date in my head. Look, you have to stay healthy first. But yes, I think I will be done at 52," Van der Voort told Sportnieuws.nl.

He is still 28th in the world rankings, yet Van der Voort is not experiencing his best season. "This year has not been good yet. I also really suffered a bit from the whole corona story and had motivation problems. You live a whole year towards the World Championship and then you have to cancel because of a corona infection, that was really tough."

One bright spot was a win against Gerwyn Price at the Dutch Darts Masters. "My son had come to watch with a group of his friends. Then you see the group going absolutely crazy. That really did something for me."

Besides playing darts himself, Van der Voort can regularly be seen as an analyst on Viaplay. As such, he is also well placed to discuss the current situation at the PDC. "I think it's a lot of the same now. Look at the Premier League Darts for example. Then you sit and watch the same players playing the same game format for weeks on end. If you did double-in-double-out there (like at the World Grand Prix), it would still be a bit of fun to watch. "

"I also think our ranking system is wrong," Van der Voort continued. "You have the 2-year world ranking, the Pro Tour ranking and the Euro Tour ranking. You can't make sense of that anymore. For example, I find it very strange that there are tournaments where the world number one is not ranked first. That you then have another ranking for that tournament. The difficult thing with the PDC is that for once there is never a sounding board where the players are listened to."

Van der Voort watches a lot of darts matches as an analyst. "What strikes me anyway is that many top players have very little understanding of darts. They don't understand at all why things are not going well. That really surprises me. That guys below the top often know more about it than the top themselves. An example is James Wade (number 5 in the world). Years ago, his darts were perfectly in the board, but now they are a bit flat. That just means the setup is no longer right. Wade just doesn't think about that anymore. Who thinks it will work itself out."

The PDC recently announced the 2023 calendar and it will be busier than ever. "That hustle and bustle is really unbearable. The top players will have to make a choice which tournaments they play and which they don't. But still, there is nothing wrong with that. As far as I am concerned, the calendar cannot be full enough, because you are not obliged to play everything. Letting a tournament slip, is just not that common within darts yet. But then again, in tennis the top players don't play a tournament every week either," Van der Voort concluded.