Van der Voort blasts European Championship criteria: "It's just an absolute disgrace the way it is"

Vincent van der Voort came through his opener at the World Grand Prix in a tie against Gabriel Clemens which didn't tell the full story as he won through straight sets but having to force a decider both times.

Van der Voort discussed returning to action and admitted it was good to play a tournament with some meaning again albeit not holding back when it came to the European Championship.

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"We have so much tournaments that don't really matter and they were all the last couple of weeks. No disrespect to the World Cup or World Series but just exhibition tournaments so it's good to be back playing real tournaments,"

"You're playing a tournament that all of a sudden a month or two months off. I played my last match in Hungary and that's a month ago. It's really difficult to see where you are in your game. I practice as hard as I can with the people at home but yeah you never know where you are."

"Considering the European Championship, it's just an absolute disgrace the way it is. You're not able to play for it."

"You knew in March, there wouldn't be a lot of Euro Tours, you could have done not two tournaments and said ok the ProTours are involved. You could have made it a lot more fair."

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On Van Gerwen

A potential meeting against his close friend Michael van Gerwen didn't materialise but he discussed him post match and admitted he was being lazy as of late.

"I think he's almost there again but he has to work a lot and he become a little bit lazy. When I first met him, he was the one you never had to say to him you have to practice and now you have to. You can see he's still there but he has to work harder."