PDC World Championship 2020 - 5
Tuesday, 16. December - "Bog sie Rodzi"
It didn't go really well for the Irish players... With the exception of William O'Connor all lost their matches though Keane Barry impressed despit his defeat by Vincent van der
Voort. Callan Rydz - who defeated Steve Lennon is another one of those really strong upcoming players and he will to be sure be a problem to other players as well.
Brendan Dolan had in the last match of the evening not many chances against Gary Anderson....
After the much less exhausting day on Monday we have another long day of darts today - in fact till the last two days of the event with the semi-finals and the final there now will be only long days of darts.
Today is another day of rather mixed nationalities - Englishmen, a female English player, a Russian, two Australians, two players from Asia, a Spaniard, might be two Dutch, two
Austrian players and one from Poland. And appropriate to Polish player Krzysztof Ratajski I chose a Christmas song from Poland for the day - the best loved Christmas song in
Poland which almost did become the national anthem of Poland. In Polish it is called "Bog sie Rodzi"what I can't even pronounce right. In English it would be "Christ is borne"
The text is from Frantisek Karpinski who wrote it in 1792, the melody is much older and once was the coronation polonaise of the Polish kings. It probably is from the 16. Century.
Many Polish artists recorded the song which is a combination of piety with patriotism. Here a link to the song:
Bog sie Rodzi
Nothing at all to do with his home country has Ratajski's Walk-on music as he walks on stage to "We like to party" by the Dutch group Vengaboys. Ratajski will play in the last match of the afternoon as seeded player against Zoran Lerchbacher. Lerchbacher played really well against Jamie Hughes but will it be enough to win against Ratajski as well?
But before that match we'll see three more first round matches which are all difficult to predict.
The first one will be Ryan Searle against Robbie King. King is some kind of black horse. He is a young Australian player who won the Oceanic Masters and by this qualified for
the PDC World Championship. He took part four times without success in the PDC Unicorn World Youth Championship. The PDC invited him to the Melbourne Darts Masters but Rob Cross
was just too much for him. This time of course he will not play Rob Cross but Ryan Searle who had no great year 2019. Stage experience will give Searle an advantage.
In the second match Cristo Reyes will play against Lourence Ilagan. Reyes had no good year while Ilagan already impressed during the last World Championship. I would say advantage
Ilagan.
Match number three will be Rowby-John Rodriguez against Noel Malicdem and the same applies to it as to the match before. Rodriguez had a terrible year. Malicdem played well during the last World Championship and was one of the best players on this year's Asian Tour.
As the afternoon session the evening session at first view doesn't really look high class. It starts which Ritchie Edhouse v Boris Koltsov. Last year Koltsov played one of the
weakest matches of the World Championship. Edhouse last year played on the Challenge Tour which means he has no Tour Card and beside will give his World Championship debut.
So it is not completely unlikely Koltsov will win the match.
Jose de Sousa and Damon Heta will come on stage for the second match. Heta this year won the Brisbane Darts Masters while de Sousa had quite some success on the Pro Tour. And de Sousa has been to the Alexandra Palace in 2012 as well. It could be an evenly matched game, might be a slight advantage for the Portuguese.
The following match could be an interesting one - Ted Evetts will play against Fallon Sherrock. Sherrock is to a certain degree used to play against male players, Evetts probably has not often played against female opponents. Sherrock is I would think not easily intimidated while Evetts might be a little bit insecure. We'll see whether Sherrock will be able to take the chance.
Last match of the evening could have been be an all Dutch affair - legends meet upcoming player- but Darin Young was too good for Raymond van Barneveld. And as de Zwaan was not in top form in the last few months the American could be too much for him as well.
