The Sports Guru
Kevin Doets arrived in Hildesheim having twice fallen at the semi-final stage the previous week. This piece examines how the 27-year-old Dutchman finally converted that near-miss momentum into a first PDC ranking title, what his final against Luke Woodhouse revealed about both players, and where this result leaves him on the road to the sport's bigger prizes.
There is a particular kind of pressure that builds on a player who has been knocking on a door without ever quite breaking through. Kevin Doets had felt it acutely in back-to-back semi-finals the previous week on the ProTour. On Monday in Hildesheim, he kicked the door clean off its hinges. The 27-year-old Dutchman beat Luke Woodhouse 8-5 in the final of Players Championship 13 to claim his maiden PDC ranking title and the £15,000 top prize.
The result carried an extra layer of storyline that made it genuinely compelling. Doets and Woodhouse were, heading into Monday's showpiece at Halle 39, the two highest-ranked players on the PDC circuit without a ranking title to their names. One of them was always going to end the day with that particular piece of their record rewritten. The question was which.
For the first third of the final, it looked emphatically like Woodhouse. The Englishman moved out to a 4-2 lead and looked composed, while Doets appeared to be feeling the weight of the occasion. What changed matters was a single moment of clinical finishing: a two-dart 100 checkout in leg seven that shifted the entire tempo of the contest. In a short-format ProTour final, where the psychological margin between a 4-2 deficit and a 4-3 deficit is often larger than the arithmetic suggests, that single visit to the board rewrote how both players were reading the match.
Five Legs in a Row and No Looking Back
From that 100 finish onwards, Doets did not let Woodhouse back into the match in any meaningful sense. He produced a run of five consecutive legs that transformed a deficit into a commanding lead. His second 11-darter of the final was followed by consecutive finishes of 105 and 128, and suddenly the scoreboard read 7-4 in his favour. Those are not the numbers of a player who scraped over the line; they are the numbers of someone who, once settled, was producing darts of genuine quality under final conditions.
Doets admitted afterwards that nerves had coloured his early performance. "I was a bit nervous in the beginning of the final," he said, "but as soon as I got into it, I played great." That is a candid and important distinction. The start was ragged; the finish was authoritative. He eventually triumphed on his ninth match dart, closing out an 8-5 victory with an average of 100.61 for the match.
His relief was evident. "Finally! What a relief," Doets said after lifting the title. "My confidence is growing. I have been playing pretty well lately, and I showed it again today." The "finally" is telling. Players who have spent time in the near-miss corridor often describe their first title as a release rather than a celebration, and that word captures precisely that feeling.
Van Duijvenbode's Moment of Perfection
While the final commanded the day's headline, the tournament had supplied its most arresting moment much earlier. Dirk van Duijvenbode produced a nine-dart finish in his opening round tie against Madars Razma. A perfect leg at any stage of a competition demands acknowledgement; producing one in round one, when many players are still finding their range and rhythm, speaks to an extraordinary level of sharpness from Van Duijvenbode. The nine-darter adds to what the source describes as his "growing haul" of perfect legs, suggesting this is becoming something of a recurring theme for the Dutchman in 2026.
It is worth contextualising what nine-darters mean on the PDC ProTour specifically. Players Championship events are contested at high pace with a large field, and the conditions are not always as settled as at televised events. A nine-darter under those circumstances is not simply a statistical rarity; it is a marker of a player running at an exceptional level of both scoring and finishing precision simultaneously. Van Duijvenbode achieving that in round one, before the competitive stakes had sharpened, makes it arguably more impressive as a display of pure technical execution than it might appear on paper.
Van Gerwen's Uncharacteristic Early Exit
The day's sharpest contrast to Doets' triumph came in the form of Michael van Gerwen's departure. The three-time world champion, described as the solitary Premier League player in action at Hildesheim on Monday, exited in round three at the hands of Krzysztof Ratajski. For a player of Van Gerwen's standing, a third-round exit on the ProTour qualifies as a poor day at the office rather than a crisis, but it will not have been the result he was seeking. Ratajski, a consistent performer on the circuit who has built a career on disciplined scoring and a reliable finish, was clearly sharp enough on the day to capitalise on whatever Van Gerwen offered him.
It is analytically interesting that Van Gerwen's absence from the latter stages opened space for a final that was, in many ways, about the next tier of the PDC hierarchy asserting itself. Doets and Woodhouse represent players pushing hard for the top 16, and a final between them had an authentic quality to it precisely because the stakes for both were personal rather than just competitive.
What the Title Means for Doets Going Forward
Doets made his ambitions plain after collecting his prize. "The next goal for me is to get into the top 16 of the world and win a major, because I have shown everyone that I have the game to do it." That is a confident declaration, and on the evidence of his run through Hildesheim, including a 7-1 semi-final demolition of Maik Kuivenhoven, it is not without foundation.
From an analytical perspective, the pattern of his victory here is encouraging for him beyond the ranking points. Players who win their first title by coming from behind in the final, as Doets did after trailing 4-2, often carry a different kind of self-belief into subsequent events. They have proof, not merely expectation, that they can hold composure when a match is running against them. That capacity is precisely what separates ProTour winners from ProTour contenders over the long run. At 27, with a first title and two consecutive semi-finals immediately behind him, Doets arrives at the remainder of the 2026 season with a credible case to make good on that major ambition sooner rather than later.
Frequently Asked Questions
A two-dart 100 checkout in the seventh leg shifted the momentum decisively. From that finish onwards, Doets reeled off five consecutive legs, posting an 11-darter and back-to-back finishes of 105 and 128 to move 7-4 ahead.
Heading into the final, both men were the highest-ranked players on the PDC circuit without a ranking title to their names. The match was therefore guaranteed to end that distinction for one of them, which gave the contest an added narrative weight beyond a routine ProTour final.
Doets had reached two consecutive semi-finals on the ProTour the previous week, falling at that stage on both occasions. His run in Hildesheim, which included a 7-1 semi-final victory over Kuivenhoven, suggested he was carrying strong form into the event.
Van Duijvenbode achieved the perfect leg in his opening round match against Madars Razma. The article notes this is part of a growing collection of nine-darters for the Dutchman, making it a recurring feature of his performances rather than an isolated achievement.
Doets finished with an average of 100.61, which the article contextualises carefully. His own admission that nerves affected his early play means that figure was pulled down by a ragged opening; the quality he produced from leg seven onwards was considerably higher than that overall number implies.
Sources: Reporting draws on PDC ProTour coverage of Players Championship 13 in Hildesheim, with results and statistics verified against official PDC event records.