{"id":446055,"date":"2026-05-13T03:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/446055\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T03:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:37:11","slug":"van-gerwen-dont-write-me-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/446055\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Gerwen: Don’t write me off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael van Gerwen clinched his first ranking title in over a year after defeating Dirk van Duijvenbode 8-5 in the final of Players Championship 15 in Leicester.<\/p>\n

The three-time world champion averaged 106.57 to topple his Dutch compatriot a match after averaging 122.34 to crush Martin Schindler 7-0.<\/p>\n

“I love what I do and especially when I play like this \u2013 I love it even more!” Van Gerwen said.<\/p>\n

“Everyone knows I’m capable, so don\u2019t write me off. I don\u2019t have to prove anything to anyone. I\u2019ve done that bit, but now it\u2019s just when I can.”<\/p>\n

Josh Rock made it to the quarter-finals where he lost 6-3 to Van Duijvenbode.<\/p>\n

Keane Barry, who spoke to RT\u00c9 Sport this week of his recent improvement<\/a>, made it to the last 16 but lost out to Ritchie Edhouse.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Mark Webster will return to the Sky Sports commentary box on Thursday after revealing “things have improved” following his cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Webster, the 2008 British Darts Organisation World Championship winner, has not worked since starting chemotherapy in February, having discovered he had a rare form of blood cancer called hairy cell leukaemia.<\/p>\n

The 42-year-old Welshman said last week that “at the minute my recovery is not going to plan in terms of the speed of it”, but he said on Tuesday that he will be able to return to the commentary box for Thursday night’s Premier League event in Birmingham.<\/p>\n

Reposting the video in which he revealed his diagnosis, he wrote on X: “I\u2019m delighted to say that since this interview was filmed, things have improved.<\/p>\n

“Although I\u2019m still undergoing treatment, I have been cleared to return to Premier League duty on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“Looking forward to being back amongst it. Thanks again for all of the love and support.”<\/p>\n

Additional reporting: PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael van Gerwen clinched his first ranking title in over a year after defeating Dirk van Duijvenbode 8-5…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-446055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}