A debutant against a four-time champion
Doets was the one making his first walk-on at this event, and he threw like the man who belonged there. He landed a 106 checkout and then a 132 finish on the bull to build his lead, the kind of finishing that decides a best of 11 before either player has settled. Van Gerwen pulled two legs back in a row and got himself within touching distance. Doets closed it out anyway.
It is the third all-Dutch meeting this autumn to go against Van Gerwen, and the pattern has started to look less like variance than form. He arrived in Dortmund on a run of defeats, having also gone out of the World Series of Darts Finals in Amsterdam in the first round, where Daryl Gurney beat him 6-5 as a reserve-list call-up. Speaking to Viaplay afterwards, he accepted that the run of losses is wearing on him and said he would keep working.
Doets has had the better year of the two. He was runner-up to Josh Rock in Graz and runner-up to Jermaine Wattimena at Players Championship 27, and now he has a first European Championship win over the most decorated Dutch player in the sport. He meets Krzysztof Ratajski on Saturday evening.
Friday’s round-one results in full
Three ties were still being played when Luke Littler’s win over William O’Connor went up on this site. All three are now in, and the 32-player first round is complete.
| Winner | Loser | Legs | New |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jermaine Wattimena | Ryan Joyce | 6-3 | |
| Krzysztof Ratajski | Dave Chisnall | 6-2 | |
| Nathan Aspinall | Cristo Reyes | 6-3 | |
| Jonny Clayton | Niko Springer | 6-3 | |
| Luke Littler | William O’Connor | 6-3 | |
| Martin Schindler | Wessel Nijman | 6-5 | • |
| Kevin Doets | Michael van Gerwen | 6-3 | • |
| Josh Rock | Chris Dobey | 6-1 | • |
Martin Schindler gave the home crowd the night’s tightest finish, taking out 80 on tops to beat Wessel Nijman 6-5 in a last-leg decider. Nijman went into the week as one of the highest seeds in the field and leaves it still waiting for a run on television. Rock was the most emphatic of the three late winners, beating Chris Dobey 6-1.
Nobody has retained this title since Van Gerwen
The reason a round-one exit reads differently for Van Gerwen than for anyone else in the draw is the record book. Four titles puts him level with Phil Taylor at the top of the European Championship roll of honour, and only two other men — Rob Cross and Peter Wright — have won it even twice in eighteen stagings.
The other six stagings went to six different first-time champions: Simon Whitlock, Adrian Lewis, James Wade, Ross Smith, Ritchie Edhouse and Gian van Veen. Source: European Championship roll of honour, 2008–2025, as published by DartsNews and Wikipedia.
His last appearance in a final here was 2021, when Cross beat him 11-8 for the second of his two titles. Six of the eight champions crowned since Van Gerwen’s run ended had never won the tournament before.
There is a sharper point buried in those years. Van Gerwen’s run from 2014 to 2017 is the last time anybody won this tournament twice in succession — eight stagings have passed since, and eight have produced a new name at the top. Cross and Wright both won second titles, but neither did it back to back. The defending champion this week is Gian van Veen, who beat Andrew Gilding 6-4 on Thursday and faces Luke Woodhousein Saturday’s afternoon session with that streak to break.
For Van Gerwen the damage is not only historical. A first-round exit pays £7,500 against the £20,000 on offer for reaching the last 16, and he was already down at world No.7 after the World Matchplay — his lowest ranking since 2013. The full arc of the career that produced those four Dortmund titles is in our Van Gerwen career profile.
Saturday’s last 16
Eight matches fill both of Saturday’s sessions, and the format changes underneath them: round two is the best of 19 legs rather than the best of 11, which is the biggest single jump in the tournament.
| Session | Match |
|---|---|
| Afternoon | Cameron Menzies v Gerwyn Price |
| Afternoon | Stephen Bunting v Kim Huybrechts |
| Afternoon | Ross Smith v Damon Heta |
| Afternoon | Gian van Veen v Luke Woodhouse |
| Evening | Krzysztof Ratajski v Kevin Doets |
| Evening | Martin Schindler v Jermaine Wattimena |
| Evening | Nathan Aspinall v Luke Littler |
| Evening | Jonny Clayton v Josh Rock |
The money steepens from here. Saturday’s winners bank £35,000 for a quarter-final place against the £20,000 guaranteed by reaching the last 16, and the ladder runs to £50,000 for a semi-final, £80,000 for the runner-up and £150,000 for the champion out of a £750,000 fund. The leg counts rise again too: the semi-finals and the final are the best of 21.
Ratajski against Doets opens the evening card, and the Pole is the first seeded test of whether Friday was a one-off. Aspinall against Littler is the tie the week has been pointing at since the draw, and Clayton against Rock pits the 2021 Grand Slam champion against the man who has just won a European Tour title in Graz. Our European Championship format guide sets out how the leg counts scale through to Sunday’s semi-finals and final, and the Dortmund draw has the bracket in full.
The quarter-finals follow on Sunday afternoon, with the semi-finals and the final at night. What is left of the season is on the 2026 calendar, and the week’s effect on the standings will show on the live PDC Order of Merit.