Dirk van Duijvenbode reached the final day of the Czech Darts Open with victory over Mario Vandenbogaerde. In an exciting match, the Dutchman came out on top.

Van Duijvenbode automatically qualified for the second round, meaning this was his first match in Prague. The service’s opponent was the Belgian “Super Mario”.

It was the Dutchman who was allowed to start the match. Partly because of the 180’er, the leg was kept at 5 innings. The Belgian gave himself some space with a number of good scores and managed to go 1-1. The Belgian continued this as Van Duigvenbode fell silent, so Super Mario could easily break, 1-2.

The two players exchanged good and bad scores in the second leg. Super Mario put 109 over the top, after which Van Duigvenbode managed to dismiss 104. The second leg was easily saved, after which the sixth inning ended, with 130 finishing in the first half, 4-2.

Van Duijvenbode failed to take further distance and threw a very sloppy leg of his own. The Belgian had good results and was able to pull back from the break. By the end of a nice 80, after Van Dugenbod missed a point at the end of the 170th, their leg was also held to square again, 4–4.

In the latter part of this match the Dutchman decided to inject in some threes, a 180 followed by a 140 that gave him the space to put his score away and then drop. The Belgian started out better after this, and Van Duijvenbode also made a mistake by putting on 165. This gave “Super Mario” the space to calmly put up his score of 96 and bowl it 5-5.

The last leg had to submit a solution to designate a winner. The Dutchman started with scores of 140 and 100. The Belgian just couldn’t keep up and then was easily finished off with 13 runs by Van Duijvenbode!

Paired averages/percentages

Dirk van Duijvenbode: 94.87 / 60%

Mario Vandenbogerde 94.67 / 50%

Image courtesy of Image: Jonas Honnold (PDC Europe)