Huge World Darts Championship shock as major winner dumped out in first game

The Grand Prix of Darts winner Mike De Decker has been dumped out of the Paddy Power PDC World Darts Championship in his first game of the tournament

Mike De Decker has been dumped out of the Paddy Power PDC World Darts Championship.

De Decker had arrived at the Alexandra Palace as one of the favourites to pick up the Sid Waddell trophy in the New Year, as he rocked up in red hot form. The Belgian claimed his first major, when he beat Luke Humphries in the final of the World Grand Prix of Darts.

However, De Decker’s assault on World Championship glory all came to abrupt end on Tuesday afternoon. A slow start against Luke Woodhouse, left De Decker with his back against the wall.

And The Real Deal was soon chasing the game as Woodhouse punished him on the outer ring. Woodhouse broke his counterpart in the first set to storm into a 1-0 lead, and it didn’t get much better in the second set with De Decker 2-0 down.

There were moments of brilliance, however, from De Decker in the third set as he showed the form that had carried him to major titles. As soon at it came, it vanished again, and Woodhouse weathered the storm to knock De Decker out of the tournament 3-1.

The Real Deal is the second seeded player to come crashing out of World Darts Championship after James Wade came a cropper on Monday’s afternoon session.

Woodhouse is just outside of the top 32, ranked as No.35, and ahead of the tournament he joked to the BBC he feels more pressure at his local: “I probably feel more pressure playing in a pub than I do on the stage at the World Championships, to be honest.

“Everyone expects you to play well and sometimes it doesn’t happen.

“For some reason having 10, 15 people watching you on one board is more nerve-wracking than having thousands behind you watching you.”