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Michael van Gerwen said Peter Wright should retire from darts and was “not surprised” the two-time world champion was knocked out in the second round of the World Championship.
Wright was blanked 3-0 by Germany’s Arno Merk on Tuesday as an already difficult 2025 ended with an early exit at Alexandra Palace.
Van Gerwen’s comments come a week after Wright claimed the Dutchman’s “vision was probably coming to fruition”.
“I’m not really surprised by his performance because he’s been playing sh*t lately,” Van Gerwen said after his 3-1 win over William O’Connor.
“Anyway, I think it’s time for him to retire.”
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Michael van Gerwen responds to Peter Wright’s claims at the World Darts Championships that his eyesight could be failing
Since losing his opening match at the World Championship in late 2023, Wright has entered a downward spiral and fallen down the rankings, with the 55-year-old almost certainly set to fall outside the top 32 after this year’s tournament at Alexandra Palace.
He has won just two matches in the entire 2024 Premier League Darts series and has failed to progress past the quarter-finals in any televised ranking tournament in the last two years.
Gary Anderson, another Scottish veteran and two-time world champion, believes Wright needs to be given “a bit of time”.
“We can’t play well all the time. People think we’re robots and you have to play well all the time, otherwise a few bad games it’s ‘he’s done, he’s retiring’,” he said.
“Just give people a break, you know. We can’t keep doing this day in and day out. We’ve seen Michael van Gerwen do this probably over the last decade. He’s got a blimp and it’s ‘that’s it, he’s done’.”
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Arno Merk defeated Peter Wright in the second round of the World Championship
Mardle: Wright shouldn’t make impulsive decisions about future
Wayne Mardle from Sky Sports Darts:
“It was a horrible sight – watching a champion, a legend of our sport, someone who helped the sport grow, I didn’t enjoy it at all.
“I don’t know what questions Peter is going to ask – if it’s like, ‘It’s okay, I’ll keep going. I love the game’. And I hope that happens.
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Take a look at some of the Christmas outfits Peter Wright has gifted to the Alexandra Palace public over the years.
“He always said ‘I don’t want to retire, I love it’, so I don’t want him to have a knee-jerk reaction because it happened at the World Championship.
“If you play like that elsewhere, it’s no big deal. You don’t really think about it, but when you do it at the World Championship, and I know this because I’ve done it, you end up wondering if you’re good enough to compete again.
“And it’s about competing, winning. He’s a winner. I hope he’s okay because you’ll think about it. This all-nighter, I hope he doesn’t have one of those knee-jerk reactions like we’ve seen from other players.
“He has been a stylish ambassador for darts – he brings that fun but also that incredible ability and a touch of class.”
Who will win the Paddy Power World Darts Championship? Watch every match exclusively live until January 3 on Sky Sports’ dedicated darts channel (Sky channel 407). Stream darts and many other top sports with NOW.
