Michael van Gerwen’s darts woes go from bad to worse with humiliating defeat to little-known prospect
MICHAEL VAN GERWEN has been sent reeling again - as unwanted stats add up for the Dutch legend in 2025.
Outsider Dominik Gruellich inflicted MVG's sixth first-round loss of this year's PDC ProTour.
Such lows are hard to take for the frustrated three-time world champion.
Van Gerwen's season has not been a total nightmare.
Most notably, he picked up his 38th Euro Tour title at the German Grand Prix in April, with a nine-darter to boot.
But the 36-year-old enters night 15 of Premier League Darts in Aberdeen on Thursday this week without a nightly win so far.
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Howevger, he's still fourth in the Prem table - just ahead of Nathan Aspinall in the battle for a place in the Play-Offs on May 29.
So it's Mighty Mike's ProTour problems that might conceern him most.
And at Players Championship 15 he slumped 6-5 to German star Gruellich in the 23-year-old's home-country town of Hildesheim.
Yet MVG could consider himself lucky compared to English ace Andrew Gilding.
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However, that was due to Gilding's flight rather than his flights.
The 54-year old didn't even make it to the tournament - as his plane was held up.
Gilding's social media team blamed "KLM’S last flight... being delayed by two hours".
They added: "Andrew would have missed his connecting flight to Hannover."
Krzysztof Ratajski went on to win Players Championship 15.
The Pole defeated Dave Chisnall 8-4 to scoop the £15,000 top prize.