Germany has reached the quarter-finals of the Darts Team World Cup and can continue to dream of triumphing for the first time. The duo Gabriel Clemens/Martin Schindler defeated Poland (Krzysztof Ratajski, Krzysztof Kciuk) 8:6 in the round of 16 on Saturday evening. In the quarter-finals on Sunday (from 1 p.m./DAZN) against the top seeded English, individual world champion Michael Smith, who competes alongside Rob Cross, will play.
Wales (Jonny Clayton, Gerwyn Price), Scotland (Peter Wright, Gary Anderson) and defending champion Australia with Simon Whitlock and Damon Heta will also be there when the title is played in the ice rink in Frankfurt am Main on Sunday. The Netherlands narrowly lost 7:8 to Belgium without the injured Michael van Gerwen.
The two Germans had already made their ambitions clear at the start of the tournament: “We don’t care what the draw says. We don’t care if we play Scotland, England or the Netherlands. We have the level of play to beat these nations,” said Martin Schindler after the 4-0 win over Hong Kong. Schindler in particular, who is playing alongside World Cup semi-finalist Gabriel Clemens, put in a strong performance in the first game of the group stage late on Thursday evening.
“We don’t want to dream too big or promise too much. But we believe in ourselves,” said Schindler. When Clemens was asked about a specific goal at the World Cup in the Frankfurt ice rink, he replied soberly as usual: “I don’t want to get rid of anything.” So far, Germany has made it into the semi-finals of the tournament once.