Merk throws out former world champion Wright

“Incredible, simply awesome. I’m still shaking a bit, my heart is still racing. I’m overjoyed,” said Merk after the biggest individual success of his career to date at DAZN. “Sure, Peter didn’t play his best game, but I didn’t let anything go wrong.”

Merk is the fourth German in round three

While Merk played his game completely unimpressed, Wright seemed completely indisposed. The Scottish bird of paradise, who competed this time with purple hair, hit false doubles several times and made mistake after mistake. Wright changed his arrows again and again during the game, but things didn’t get any better. Wright was the Ally Pally World Champion in 2020 and 2022.

In the third round, Merk will face either Michael van Gerwen from the Netherlands or William O’Connor from Ireland. After Ricardo Pietreczko, Martin Schindler and Gabriel Clemens, Merk is the fourth German to reach round three of this World Cup. For no professional is this step as surprising as for Merk, who took part in the reality TV format Darts Party on Sport1 a few months ago.

Wright comes on stage with Christmas music

The only thing that was right about Wright was his run-in. Instead of “Don’t Stop The Party” as usual, the veteran came on stage the day before Christmas Eve this time to “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. The sporting performance then turned into a disaster.

“If I play my game, I can beat him in good shape,” Merk had said in advance. But Wright was far from that. The two-time world champion could fall out of the top 32 in the rankings after his early World Cup exit