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Michael van Gerwen (born April 25, 1989 in Boxtel, Netherlands) is a Dutch professional darts player, nicknamed Mighty Mike. In January 2007, van Gerwen became the youngest player ever to compete at the BDO version of the World Professional Darts Championship at the age of 17 years, 257 days. He was seeded third but lost to Gary Robson in the first round.

Youth career

Michael reached the final of the Primus Masters Youth event at the age of just 14 in 2003. He then started to amass youth titles in 2005 including the German Open, German Gold Cup, Norway Open, Northern Ireland Open, Swedish Open and the Dutch National Youth Championship which he also defended in 2006. He also won the Men's events in the Norway and Northern Ireland Opens in the same year that he took the youth titles.

BDO career

He picked up several Open titles and rose up the BDO/WDF World Rankings having climbed as high as third, even before he reached his 18th birthday.

Michael reached the semi-finals of the Bavaria World Darts Trophy in 2006. Despite losing to Martin Adams, the Dutch youngster came within one dart of the perfect nine dart finish, just missing double twelve. He did manage the highest possible checkout of 170 during the tournament.

He managed to eclipse that performance at the 2006 Winmau World Masters by becoming the youngest ever champion. Having trailed 1-4 and 2-5 to Adams, he came back to win the title and take Eric Bristow's record as the youngest ever winner at the age of 17 years 174 days.

His early career success led to inevitable speculation that he may join the other professional circuit of darts, the Professional Darts Corporation. However, during the 2006 World Darts Trophy, van Gerwen held a press conference to make it clear that he wanted to stay with the BDO/WDF. [1] He also finished top of the DDF (Dutch Darts Federation) Rankings - which would have secured him a place at the PDC World Championship if he chose to accept. He had already committed to playing at Lakeside, so the place went to Rico Vonck who finished second in the rankings.

Van Gerwen was the bookmakers pre-tournament favourite to win the 2007 Lakeside World title, but his hopes were ended in the first round.

On the night of the 2007 BDO World Championship Final it was announced on Dutch television that van Gerwen, along with Jelle Klaasen and Vincent van der Voort would be switching to the Professional Darts Corporation.

PDC career

Michael started at 88 in the PDC World Rankings. Although he was a BDO player he was eligible for certain PDC events in his home country even before he switched to the PDC. This included the Open Holland in 2006, in which he took the title.^[1]

He made his PDC debut on January 20 at the Stan James Players Championships in Gibraltar and beat Andy Hamilton before losing in the last 16 to fellow countryman Roland Scholten. In the second Players Championship the following day, he beat Raymond van Barneveld in the early rounds only to lose to Alan Warriner-Little in the quarter finals.

He followed up his victory over van Barneveld by beating 13 times World Champion Phil Taylor by 3 sets to 0 on the opening night of the Masters of Darts tournament. All three sets went to a deciding leg which van Gerwen clinched with 14, 12 and 12 darts. He went on to reach the semi-final of the tournament and achieved a perfect nine dart finish against van Barneveld, but lost the match.^[2]

Michael has yet to deliver any success on in UK-televised tournaments, having made his debut at the 2007 UK Open falling in the last 32 to Colin Osborne. He failed to qualify for the 2007 Las Vegas Desert Classic and was defeated in round two of the World Matchplay in Blackpool by Ronnie Baxter 12-14, having been one leg from victory at 12-10. One of van Gerwen's more impressive achievements on Sky however came in a 2008 PDC World Darts Championship first round defeat to Taylor; notably he had 1 dart to win the match and ultimately knock out the 13 time world champion, and end a phenomenal record of Taylor of reaching every PDC World Championship Final. However, Taylor's record was later ended in the Quarter Final losing 5-4 in sets to Wayne Mardle.

Michael ended his long wait for a tournament victory by beating his Dutch compatriot Vincent van der Voort 6-3 in the final of the Players Championship in Taunton on April 11, 2009 and earned him £6,000 towards the Order of Merit.

Majors (1)

World Masters

Winner (1)

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2006	Winmau World Masters	Martin Adams	7-5

References

External links

• Michael van Gerwen official web site
• Michael van Gerwen's profile and stats on Darts Database