"You can take the money off my ranking but I don't lose the titles" - Michael Smith insists he's not feeling the pressure of potential ranking slide

Michael Smith romped into the second round of the 2024 European Championship on Thursday night in Dortmund, taking a dominant 6-0 victory over good friend Dave Chisnall.

The scoring level was far below what would be expected from both men. However, the difference was that Smith hit his doubles, while Chisnall missed no less than twelve darts on the outer ring. In the first leg, Chisnall already missed seven darts on the double. Smith then put the score at 2-0, before throwing out consecutive 104, 148 and 161. The verdict was delivered in leg six by Smith, who ended the match with an 18-darter.

"I was expecting a real close game then, just lucky enough he was decent at scoring bad at doubles, which is normally my game," the former world champion smiles in his post-match press conference. "I was bad at scoring, then I did three ton pluses in a row and yeah, kind of took control of the game then. Happy with the result in the end, but not happy with the scoring."

Although Smith remains 2nd in the PDC Order of Merit, 'BullyBoy' is coming up to a very important part of the season where he is defending big prize money from two years ago, having reached the final of the 2022 European Championships and then took the title at the 2022 Grand Slam of Darts and the 2023 World Darts Championships. As such, in the provisional post-Ally Pally Order of Merit via Darts Rankings, Smith is down in a lowly 14th, not that the man himself is too concerned.

"My game at the minute is my own fault from when I won the Worlds, taking virtually a full year out apart from stage events and yeah, I'm paying the price," he evaluates. "In practice I feel like it's back to the way it was, it's back at its best, it's just not showing on stage at the minute and who knows, it could be this weekend, it could be next week in the Grand Slam or best of all, it could be at the Worlds."

"Even if I lose first round in everything, you can't take 22 and 23 away from me. That's one thing you can't do. You can take the money off my ranking but I don't lose the titles," Smith concludes.