England Pair Crash Out As Germany Takes World Cup Of Darts Win

Having been named as clear tournament favourites for the World Cup of Darts, English pair Luke Littler and Luke Humphries in some ways had a predictable defeat to the German pairing at the last 16 stage.

Representing this year's host country, Martin Schindler and tournament debutant Ricardo Pietreczko, took full advantage of a string of missed doubles and some general, overall, sloppy play to take a deserved 8-4 victory in Frankfurt over the top two players in the world and for those who like a flutter on online darts betting, the odds of a shock defeat would have been enticing, particularly as there had already been those in the world of darts who were predicting that the duo would not click as some had hoped.

With Humphries partnering Michael Smith to victory in last year's tournament, the pair were the favourites and many expected them to lead England to a record extending sixth successive World Cup crown, but there were some who would have expected the extra pressure to get to the Luke's and in front of a vociferous home crowd, the stresses and strains of being massive favourites ultimately told and they failed to live up to their expectations.

Undoubtedly the more unfamiliar surroundings and format of the World Cup of Darts would have also played its part in both failing to reach their own set levels, but from the moment they were booed onto the stage, neither looked comfortable and as many commentators have already said, in many ways it looked like they were both waiting for each other to step up as opposed to taking charge themselves.

With both becoming MBE's in Saturday's King's Birthday Honours list, it was definitely not the outcome that either would have wanted as they teamed up together for the first time, but it would have been a massive learning curve and if used properly for the year's to come in their professional careers, they should both show significant improvement and benefit from the experience.

Having recovered to level the match at 2-2, the German pairing rose to the occasion and stepped up to take the next five legs to put them on the verge of securing an unexpected but famous victory. England did then pull back a couple of legs to renew hope of a fightback, but it was not to be as debutant Pietreczko, lovingly nicknamed Pikachu, sealed an impressive 62 checkout in the 12th leg to secure the victory.

It was a notable win for the German pair, who had already defeated the Argentinian entrants 8-1 and they now move forward to face Australia's Simon Whitlock and Damon Heta, the 2022 winners, in the next round of the competition. The quarter final draw was completed by Danny Noppert and Gian van Veen who took an 8-0 whitewash of Scotland pair Gary Anderson and Peter Wright, two time Welsh winners Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton who took an 8-2 win over the Philippines, and fourth seeds Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney who took Northern Ireland to an 8-2 victory over South Africa.

They now join the Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong and Czech Republic.