Beau Greaves remains the premier player in the ladies game after successfully retaining the WDF Women’s World Championship in December.
The 2022 champion went into her title defence at the Lakeside as a big favourite and showed why as she reached the final without dropping a set. ‘Beau ‘n’ Arrow’ ran out a 4-1 winner in the decider against Aileen de Graaf, the former World Master who was appearing in her first World Championship final.
After choosing to play at the Lakeside and waving away her spot in the PDC World Darts Championship, the back-to-back winner pocketed the £25,000 top prize and became only the fifth player to have won multiple women’s world titles. Greaves, who turned 20 in January, is the youngest to have achieved that feat, following in the footsteps of 10-time champion Trina Gulliver, Anastasia Dobromyslova, Lisa Ashton and Mikuru Suzuki.
Meanwhile, Andy Baetens made history as the first player from Belgium to win a senior world title as he lifted the WDF Men’s World Championship.
Like Greaves, ‘The Beast From The East’ went into the tournament as the number one seed and the favourite with the bookmakers. Baetens was in a ruthless mood as he thrashed Chris Landman 6-1 in the final to win the title and break new ground for his country.
His remarkable consistency shone through all week with the averages across his five matches all between 93 and 94. Many observers commented on how easily he seemed to have taken to the storied lakeside stage.
Baetens walked away with the £50,000 winner’s cheque, but he will not be returning to the Lakeside at the end of this year having won a PDC tour card at European Q-School in January.
Indeed, the men’s field for the WDF Men’s World Championship will have a new look to it in 2024 with the reigning champion Baetens, along with the beaten finalist Landman, Jelle Klaasen, Danny Lauby and James Hurrell all earning two-year tour cards at Q-School.
At the time of writing, 2022 Lakeside winner Neil Duff is set to be the provisional number one seed for the next renewal of the WDF’s flagship event. Greaves holds a sizeable advantage at the top of the women’s rankings and will be the top seed again if she attempts to complete a hat-trick of women’s world titles in December.
Dutch Open Delight as WDF Cycle Begins Again
Jarno Bottenberg says it was his ‘best checkout ever’ that saw him crowned the new Dutch Open champion. The 22-year-old took out an incredible 131 finish to beat Wesley Plaisier 3-2 in an all-Dutch men’s final at the De Bonte Wever, in Assen.
With Plaisier sat waiting on 40 after 12 darts to break the throw and take the final to a deciding leg, Bottenberg hit treble 17 and two double tops to lift the title.
“I was feeling well in the last set, but I wasn’t thinking I could win the match with a 131 in that moment,” Bottenberg told the Weekly Dartscast.
“I’m very happy the tops tops went in. If not, I think Wesley would have made it 2-2 and he would have had the darts in the last leg. It would have been very difficult to beat Wesley then as he has a lot more experience than I do.”
“I was happy to get over the line and what a way to do it with the 131. I think it is my best checkout ever. There was not a moment in the whole tournament where I gave up. I always kept fighting and you saw that in the final.”
“It was an unbelievable feeling that I could lift that trophy and in front of so many Dutch people in the crowd. I live 20 minutes away from Assen so you could say it was like a home game for me!”
The Dutch Open still holds the status as the biggest open darts tournament in the world, with the 2024 edition boasting more than 6,500 entries across all of the competitions.
Bottenberg’s thrilling victory against Plaisier in the final was his 12th match in his title-winning campaign in the men’s singles.
“It’s a very big tournament and such a hard tournament to win because the men’s singles is played over two days,” Bottenberg said.
“There was almost 3,500 entries so you don’t have enough time to finish the tournament in one day. Saturday it’s played from the last 4096 and down to the last 128, and the 128 best players play the rest of the tournament on the Sunday.”
“You have to be good on both days because you are playing so many good players. On the Saturday I played my first game at 10am and the second game at 2.30pm, so I had more than four hours between those games.
“It’s really hard to keep your focus and you have to be good every game, otherwise you can lose.There’s so many people there just for the fun and it’s just one big party. It’s such a big event and I really like to play there.”
“I’ve had a busy start to the year. Q-School didn’t go as planned, but I made it to the final stage which I was happy with. I had a run to the quarter-finals on the Challenge Tour, but after that I was thinking my form let me down again.
“Confidence is the key to success for me, so I went to the Dutch Open with no goals and to try and relax and enjoy and see what happens!”
Bottenberg’s win also continues the Dutch dominance in the men’s singles event, with fellow Dutchmen Jelle Klaasen (2022) and Berry van Peer (2023) having won the title in the previous two years.
Meanwhile, Beau Greaves was in a dominant mood as she regained the Dutch Open women’s singles, beating Aileen de Graaf 5-1 in the final. De Graaf had won her fourth Dutch Open title just 12 months earlier after seeing off Greaves 5-2 in the 2023 decider.
But the two-time WDF women’s world champion avenged that defeat to double her own tally, having first tasted success in Assen back in 2022.
The Dutch Open tournament director Paul Engelbertink added:
“The 2024 Toto Dutch Open was amazing with many participants, visitors, a good atmosphere and great competitions.
We had more than 20,000 visitors over the four days with 6,677 registrations from 27 different nationalities. There were 170 official competition boards for the 12 different tournaments and 23,914 legs were played.
We have been busy organising this great event with 220 people per day helping out from parking attendants to cleaners, from service to security, and from location staff to all of our partners and sponsors and more than 50 volunteers.
Thank you to all of these people and to all of the enthusiastic participants and visitors. That’s what we do it for. We look forward to hosting you all in 2025 – see you then!”
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