Darts has a new star in the making after Dimitri van den Bergh saw off Gary Anderson with minimum fuss 18-10 in the final of the PDC World Matchplay last Sunday.
The 26-year-old Belgian world youth champion, who becomes the first youth winner to pick up a ranking TV title, was making his World Matchplay debut but looked increasingly confident as the week commenced in Milton Keynes.
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Van den Bergh is now the first debutant to win the World Matchplay and the first to make the final since James Wade in 2006. The two time World Youth champion is also celebrating his first senior title of any kind.
Played without a crowd, The Dream Maker continued to dance his way to the oche where, over the week, he saw off the likes of Nathan Aspinall, Joe Cullen, Adrian Lewis and Glen Durrant until he met two-time world champion Anderson in Sunday’s final.
In the match, the new world number 12 hit a 170 to level at 6-6 before pulling off and leaving The Flying Scotsman in his wake with further finishes from 132 and 124.
Out of form, Anderson had to wait until the 24th leg before he hit his solitary 180 of the contest as he was blown aside by the 200/1 pre-tournament outsider who became the first player from Belgium to win a PDC major.
The 2020 Darts Premier League season will resume for Night Seven on Tuesday, August 25 where Milton Keynes will once again play host.
That is for the next six rounds of fixtures which will all be played on consecutive nights behind closed doors at the Marshall Arena, before the season switches back to Thursday nights from September 17, where play will head out to Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and London.
Dimitri Van den Bergh is not on the list of this year’s Darts Premier League participants but has been swiftly installed as a 33/1 hopeful at bet365 for success at the Ally Pally World Championships this December.