World Matchplay 2024 - The Debutants
Ricardo Pietreczko
Born: 20. October 1994Lives in: Nürnberg/Erlangen, Germany
Darts: 23g DataDarts
Nickname: Pikachu
Walk-on-Music: Pokemon Theme (Jason Paige)
German Pietreczko is the first of this year's five debutants who will come on the stage of the Winter Gardens in Blackpool and he will play against World Champion Luke Humphries - not really an easy draw...
Pietreczko, from a Polish family which lived a short time in the USA as well, started to play darts when he was 16. He first played tournaments of the DDV, the BDO and the WDF and was first nominated for the German national team in 2016. 2016 he took part for the first time in the World Masters and he returned to the tournament every year till 2020. 2017 he celebrated his first international success when he reached the semi-finals of the of the WDF World Cup singles.2018 he was German Champion. 2015 and 2018 he played the Super League Germany and 2018 he qualified for his first European Tour Event.
2021 Pietreczko played on the PDC Challenge Tour and 2022 he got a PDC Tour Card by the Qualifying School ranking. His first year on the Tour was far from spectacular though he once reached a semi-final on the Pro Tour. The second year on the circuit started as average till he won the German Darts Championship - an European Tour Event - and by this qualified for the European Championship and the Grand Slam of Darts. Outstanding was in the win Pietreczko's hitting rate on the doubles of 100 percent. At the PDC World Championship 2023/24 the German reached the third round where he lost a close match to Luke Humphries.
In 2024 Pietreczko to date was qualified as player among the Top 16 of the Pro Tour Order of Merit for each European Tour Event though his form is quite staggering with averages betweeen 80.15 and 100.34. So far he reached one European Tour semi-final. On the Pro Tour his best result was a place in the fourth round.
Pietreczko admits he has a motivation problem. Beside by some bizarre appearances and sometimes weird behaviour on stage he lost the first big sympathy of the crowd. Pietreczko always dreamed to be a darts professional and pursued this goal consequential. But now he has difficulties to live this part.
It is very difficult to say whether he has a chance to defeat Luke Humphries. In Pietreczko's favour is of course that he already once had Humphries at the ropes. But Humphries is World Champion now and just won the World Cup of Darts - it will be a hard match for the German especially as the crowd probably will support Humphries.