Van der Voort saw Van Gerwen struggle with awkward Dolan: "It was a very tough match"

After a tough match against Brendan Dolan, Michael van Gerwen qualified for the last sixteen at the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship in London on Saturday night. 'Mighty Mike' rallied after a good start to Dolan, eventually winning 4-2 from his Northern Irish opponent.

Good friend Vincent van der Voort saw that Van Gerwen did not have an easy time against The History Maker. "It was a very tough match. Fortunately, he won. In the preparation it didn't go so well, nice that he still managed to turn it around," Van der Voort analyzed in the podcast Darts Draait Door.

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Dolan started the match strong and managed to take the first set 3-2. "After first set I had a hard head in it. The grouping of the arrows was not right," Van der Voort thought. After the break, however, Van Gerwen managed to win nine of the 10 subsequent legs to turn the 0-1 deficit into a 3-1 lead.

"In the second set it was great class though and then he continued it well in the third and fourth sets. Then he fell back a bit. That last one has to come out," Van der Voort referred to Van Gerwen's fifth set.

As a result, Dolan came back to 3-2 and even had one more chance on the bullseye to drag out a deciding set. "He is really tough," Van der Voort said of the Northern Irish dart player. "But the way Michael plays that third and fourth set, then he makes the difference especially scoring. He has the momentum though. It's coming up that he's going to play better and better."

On Monday night Van Gerwen may continue his hunt for a fourth world title at the Alexandra Palace in London. Then the 35-year-old from the Netherlands will play the winner of the match between Jeffrey de Graaf and Paolo Nebrida in the fourth round of the World Darts Championship.

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