From every corner of the West Hall, from the stands to the table seats, came a ringing of boos. Up on the stage Noa-Lynn van Leuven held her head high. Tried to maintain her focus amid the cacophony of derision and disdain being flung her way by the crowd.
Now, before your favourite patriotic news outlet gets too excited, this was no act of protest, or prejudice, or cruelty. Van Leuven was simply paying the public penalty that awaits all players when they start a leg with two 180s and then miss the seventh dart of an attempted nine-dart finish. Just a normal thing that happens all the time, and is really no big deal.
As, in a way, is Van Leuven’s very presence at Alexandra Palace this year. And taken out of context, the sight of the world No 144 losing to the world No 51, Kevin Doets, in the first round would scarcely merit much comment outside of the Netherlands, from where both players hail. But then, you have the context.
That context being death threats on a daily basis. Vicious messages on social media. Even now, the Professional Darts Corporation has to switch off comments every time it posts about her on X. But the 28-year-old from Heemskerk has long since accustomed herself to the savage gaze. Long since learned to shut out the noise, take solace in the simplicity and the sincerity of three darts and a target.
“It’s just a great game,” she said in the wake of her defeat. “I love the game. I just want to play darts. And anyone who’s being terrible about me, it says more about them.”
Van Leuven will not stop. This has been a breakthrough year for her, a year of prodigious improvement, with landmark victories against men on the Challenge Tour added to multiple wins in the Women’s Series, a debut Grand Slam appearance, and here the scent of an almighty shock. She took the first set, and would have averaged over 90 but for a farcical leg in the second.
Doets eventually clinched it in 33 darts after a fiesta of missed doubles, and it proved a pivotal moment in the match. From potentially throwing for a 2-0 lead, Doets swept to a 3-1 win and a second-round meeting with Michael Smith. As for Van Leuven, she will go to Q-School next month in an attempt to win a professional tour card for the first time.
“I stopped playing darts for a few years because I was unhappy with myself,” Van Leuven said. “Kevin continued playing darts. He got to the Pro Tour. He’s got so much more experience than I do. I guess that that’s what made the difference this game.”
But from every corner of the West Hall, from the stands to the table seats, the crowd warmed to her. They roared her on to the stage, roared the 180s, roared her off the stage again. “To be fair, I was expecting a lot of bad behaviour from the crowd today,” Doets said. “But I don’t think I heard a single boo for her. I like that.”
And it has been from within darts that Van Leuven has found some of her strongest support. Fellow players such as Fallon Sherrock, Luke Humphries and Michael van Gerwen have stood up for her. Non-darts people – with a faint veneer of snobbery – often find this solidarity surprising. But then this has always been a sport where everyone is welcome. Where it doesn’t matter where you come from, who you are, or who you were. All that matters is the three darts in your hand, and the magic bottled up in them.
Sherrock knows that better than anyone, having so memorably reached the last 32 here on her debut appearance five years ago, before going to the quarter-finals of the Grand Slam in 2021. But the magic is summoned a little more rarely these days. On her fifth appearance in the Palace, she was beaten 3-2 by Ryan Meikle in a scruffy game. The left-handed Meikle will become Luke Littler’s first opponent at this tournament, and unless he shows significant improvement his chances are slim to nil.
We also got the biggest shock of the tournament so far, as the World Grand Prix champion, Mike De Decker, was bundled out by Luke Woodhouse. De Decker has been on a stunning autumn streak and might have expected a shot at the Premier League next year. That feels a more remote prospect now after a meek performance under the bright lights, even if Woodhouse – a reliable performer at Pro Tour level – was one of the toughest draws he could have got first up.
In the final game of the evening, Peter Wright sneaked through a bruising encounter against the hotly tipped Wesley Plaisier to set up a third-round tie against the in-form Jermaine Wattimena. Plaisier missed eight darts to win the second set, two to win the fourth, 20 in total, outscored Wright in the averages by four points. That said: the last time Wright survived an early scare like this, back in 2020, he won the tournament.
