Saturday 23 February 2019

ET1/2 qualification winners and losers

In case you've missed it, here's the state of play with just six spots to non-tour card players (four home nation, two EU-land):


So who are the big winners?

1) Madars Razma

Having already played the Nordic and Baltic qualifier back in October before the PDC changed the qualification format, it's unknown why he was allowed a second shot at the second qualifier (or, for that matter, Labanauskas and Kantele, possibly others, but at least they didn't have the cheek to win it), but there you go.

2) Dimitri van den Bergh

Picked him as a player to watch, and saying that he should be doing well enough to get into at least one of the events, and he did the double. You're on the stage now, run with it.

3) Martin Atkins (Leeds)

It's pretty good going to do the double in the UK qualifiers regardless of who you are, but for someone who doesn't have (and has never had, Scott Taylor doesn't but at least he did and made a Pro Tour final last year) a tour card, it's a great effort.

4) Non tour card holders in general

At least for Leverkusen, there's so many players that do have a card to get through, but nearly half of the qualifiers don't have a tour card. It's a great chance for a bunch of them to get some exposure.

And your losers?

1) Steve West

He's a high seed, and should really have got to one of these, but he lost in the last round twice, once playing alright, the second time maybe not so much.

2) Steve Lennon

Similar theory, and while he's probably not quite at West's level, he should have at least beat one of Borland or Prins to qualify.

3) Chris Dobey

Again, although he at least got tough draws in Ross Smith and Luke Humphries in the final round.

4) Kyle Anderson

He was fairly quiet in 2018, so could have done with a good start here, losing out to Ritchie Edhouse 6-0 and then Jamie Hughes is less than ideal.

5) Danny Noppert

Was the top seed in the Euro qualifiers but got blitzed by a resurgent Kim Huybrechts, and would also go down to a surprise defeat to Tytus Kanik.

Likely won't be back until Sunday evening with a PC 5/6 report, but you never know.

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