Mike De Decker has insisted he is not personally down after Belgium’s damaging World Cup of Darts defeat to Hong Kong, but admitted Dimitri Van den Bergh has been hit hard by a result that leaves one of the group-stage seeds staring at an early exit.
Belgium were beaten 4-2 by Hong Kong in Group B on the opening night in Frankfurt, with Man Lok Leung and Lok Yin Lee producing the sort of balanced doubles display that can make this tournament so unforgiving. The defeat matters because only the group winners move through to the knockout phase, and Belgium now need to beat Slovenia while hoping the group and leg-difference picture falls their way.
De Decker’s post-match comments, reported by DartsNews, captured the brutal split inside Belgium’s performance. The former World Grand Prix champion was strong individually, but Van den Bergh could not find anything like the same level.
De Decker could not drag Belgium over the line
According to DartsNews, De Decker averaged around 106, while Van den Bergh averaged 66. Belgium actually averaged slightly more than Hong Kong as a pair, but that number did not tell the full story. Hong Kong created the clearer finishing rhythm, missed only five darts at doubles and punished Belgium’s lack of combined pressure.
“I couldn’t do any more,” De Decker said after the match, before adding the line that explains this format better than any statistic: “You win with two and you lose with two.”
That is the particular cruelty of World Cup darts. A player can be the best performer on the stage and still walk off beaten if the partnership is not functioning. Hong Kong were not spectacular for the sake of headlines, but they were far more joined-up when it mattered, and that is often enough in a best-of-seven group match.
Van den Bergh now faces a huge response
De Decker was careful not to throw his team-mate under the bus, but he did not pretend the performance was anything other than painful for Van den Bergh. “I’m not down in the dumps. Dimitri is, though, and that’s very understandable,” he said.
For Van den Bergh, the timing is awkward. Belgium arrived with ranking pedigree and name value, yet the World Cup rarely rewards reputation unless both players settle quickly. The short format leaves almost no room to feel your way into a match, especially against a Hong Kong pair who looked comfortable accepting the role of disruptors.
The official PDC Europe tournament guide sets out the wider structure: 40 nations are involved, the group stage is best of seven legs, and the four top-seeded nations enter directly in the last 16. Everyone else in the preliminary phase has to win their group to survive.
Belgium’s margin has vanished
That leaves Belgium with no clean route. They must beat Slovenia, then hope Hong Kong are dragged back into a three-team calculation. Even then, legs could decide whether a seeded nation survives or disappears before the main weekend begins.
The opening-night roundup from DartsNews underlined just how quickly the tournament created pressure, with Hong Kong’s win over Belgium sitting alongside the United States’ deciding-leg victory against Australia as an early warning to the bigger names.
For Belgium, though, this is no longer about reputation. It is about whether De Decker can reproduce that level and whether Van den Bergh can answer quickly enough to stop a poor night becoming a failed campaign.
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