World champ MVG intends to be ‘king of darts’ for another decade
MICHAEL VAN GERWEN is ready to become the “king of darts” for the next decade after winning his third PDC World Darts Championship.
The Dutchman has dominated the game in recent years and there is little evidence to suggest he will not reign supreme for several years to come.
He moved ahead of Adrian Lewis, John Part and Gary Anderson in the list of PDC world champions when he beat Michael Smith at Alexandra Palace on Tuesday. Van Gerwen, who turns 30 in April, admits he will not be able to get near the numbers of 16-time world champion Phil Taylor as he plans to retire when he is 40.
But he sees no reason why the next 10 years cannot be trophy-laden.
“It will be around 40, I could be the king of darts, why not?” he said.
“I have been the king of darts for the last five years, another 10 years, why not? Keep positive.”
Smith, who could have made a closer game of it had he been able to find his doubles at key moments, claimed he is better than MVG and intends to dethrone him as No 1.
Plenty of pretenders to the throne have come and gone in the last few years, but the Dutchman does not believe there are many that have what it takes to challenge him at the highest level.
“They are not good enough,” he added. “You can say whatever you want, but to have the mindset is something totally different.”
Van Gerwen won a cool £500,000 in prize money for lifting the trophy – the biggest pot in the tournament’s history.
But how much he sees of that will depends on the exchange rate of the pound to the euro and that is why he has described Brexit as “horrible”.
“It affects me really hard,” he said. “I get paid everything in pounds, so just look how the pound compares to the euro, so that costs me 10 per cent of my prize money straight away.”