Michael van Gerwen’s darts woes go from bad to worse with humiliating defeat to little-known prospect

MICHAEL VAN GERWEN has been sent reeling again – as unwanted stats add up for the Dutch legend in 2025.

Outsider Dominik Gruellich inflicted MVG’s sixth first-round loss on this year’s 2025 ProTour.

Michael van Gerwen’s struggle went on with last-leg agonyRex

Such lows are hard to take for the three-time world champion.

Van Gerwen‘s season has not been a total nightmare.

Most notably, he picked up his 38th Euro Tour title at the German Grand Prix in April, with a nine-darter to boot.

And the 36-year-old enters night 15 of Premier League Darts in Aberdeen on Thursday this week without a nightly win so far.

But he’s still fourth in that table – just ahead of Nathan Aspinall in the battle for a place in the Play-Offs on May 29.

So it’s his ProTour problems that will concern Mighty Mike most.

And at Players Championship 15 he slumped 6-5 to German star Gruellich in the 23-year-old’s home-country town of Hildesheim, Germany

But MVG might think he was lucky compared to English ace Andrew Gilding.

But it was due to hsi flight rather than his flights. 

The 54-year old didn’t even make it to the tournament – as his flight was held up.

Gilding’s social media team blamed “KLM’S last flight… being delayed by two hours”.

The Dutchman crashed out to German outsider Dominik GruellichGetty

They added: “Andrew would have missed his connecting flight to Hannover.”

Krzysztof Ratajski went on to win Players Championship 15.

The Pole defeated Dave Chisnall 8-4 to scoop the £15,000 top prize.