The Sports Guru
Wessel Nijman is rapidly rewriting what elite-level PDC floor darts looks like in 2026, and this piece examines just how far his transformation has taken him. We also chart what the continued absence of a ProTour win means for Michael van Gerwen, the man whose record Nijman has now matched for titles in a single year since 2016.
For the past decade, winning five PDC ProTour titles in a single calendar year was a feat associated with one man: Michael van Gerwen. On Tuesday evening in Hildesheim, a 25-year-old Dutchman who spent the winter making quiet but significant life decisions matched that benchmark, and did so with a performance that left very little room for debate. Wessel Nijman crushed Max Hopp 8-1 in the Players Championship 14 final to claim his fifth ProTour title of 2026, becoming the first player since Van Gerwen himself in 2016 to reach that mark in a year. Meanwhile, the three-time world champion he has now shadowed in the record books was already on the motorway home, eliminated in the third round by Mensur Suljovic.
The symmetry is uncomfortable for Van Gerwen's supporters. The man who set the standard Nijman has now matched exited at 6-4 to an Austrian opponent who took a 4-1 lead and defended it efficiently. Suljovic himself could not sustain that level through to the final, falling to Tom Bissell in the quarter-finals, but that does nothing to ease the narrative building around MVG. A first ProTour win of the 2026 season remains outstanding, and with Nijman visibly accelerating in the opposite direction, the contrasting trajectories of two Dutch professionals have become one of the more compelling subplots on the floor circuit.
Hopp's journey to the final deserves acknowledgement before the attention shifts entirely to the winner. The German entered the event's top ten of the Players Championship rankings by reaching his first final since 2019, a seven-year gap that speaks to how difficult sustained relevance at this level genuinely is. Reaching a ProTour final requires navigating six or seven consecutive knockout matches in a single day, often against seeded opponents in the later rounds, so the achievement itself should not be diminished by the manner of the defeat. But in Hildesheim on Tuesday, Nijman offered him no realistic foothold.
A Final That Was Over Before Hopp Could Settle
Wessel Nijman opened the final by punishing Hopp busting 61 to lead 1-0, then took an 88 checkout to double his advantage. What followed was the kind of sequence that suffocates opponents before they can find a rhythm: four consecutive legs to lead 6-0, including an 84 outshot on the bullseye in the fifth leg and a 140 checkout in the sixth. By that point Nijman was averaging north of 110 with two legs still to win. Hopp did break in the seventh, but it remained a lone consolation. Nijman broke back immediately and sealed the title with a 15-dart hold, finishing with a 104.62 average for the match, his best performance of the entire day.
That last detail matters. Floor darts events are relentless tests of consistency across an entire day's play, with players sometimes throwing eight or nine legs before the final even begins. Producing a career-best tournament average in the final rather than the opening rounds suggests Nijman's concentration sharpens precisely when the stakes are highest. A player who peaks in early rounds and fades in finals is a common enough archetype in darts; Nijman appears to be constructed differently.
"It's always good to hold your best game for the final," Nijman said after collecting the £15,000 top prize. "I'm just happy with the way I'm playing. I played well today, especially in the later stages of the tournament." His composure in how he framed the victory was telling: no triumphalism, no fixation on the historic nature of the achievement. "I don't really care about records, I care more about the form that I'm playing right now. It's always good to have those kinds of records in your bag, but it doesn't give you much more than the form you're in. I just want to be in the top 16 and make as many steps as close to number one as possible by the end of the year."
That is the statement of a player who understands exactly where he is in the pecking order and is building methodically rather than chasing attention. For someone who has now reached six finals in 12 floor appearances this season, the understatement is almost jarring.
The Road to the Final: Four Consecutive Ton-Plus Averages
Nijman's path through the field was consistent without ever appearing routine. He opened with comfortable victories over Daniel Klose and Jurjen van der Velde before a 6-3 win over Niall Culleton took him into the last 16. His stiffest examination came against Joe Cullen at that stage, where he triumphed 6-4 with a 102 average. That match began a sequence of four consecutive ton-plus averages that carried him all the way to the title, a level of performance that would represent a personal peak for most players in the field, let alone a sustained run across multiple knockout rounds.
He followed the Cullen win by thumping Krzysztof Ratajski 6-1 with a 102.98 average in the quarter-finals, then moved past Danny Noppert 7-2 in the semi-finals to set up the meeting with Hopp. Six finals from 12 appearances is a strike rate that the sport's elite players would recognise, and it explains why those who have watched Nijman most closely are struggling to find a ceiling for him right now. What is notable about the sequence is not just the averages themselves but the fact that they rose as the opposition improved, which is precisely the pattern associated with players operating with genuine confidence rather than riding a statistical anomaly.
Away from the main narrative, Richard Veenstra provided one of the day's most spectacular individual moments, hitting a nine-darter in his round two tie against Leon Weber. Veenstra reached the last 16 before losing to Oliver Mitchell, but the perfect leg will remain the headline from his day regardless.
Matt Edgar's November Prediction and What It Tells Us
The most illuminating contribution to understanding Nijman's rise came not from a match statistic but from a podcast observation made several months before this week's results. Speaking on the Love The Darts podcast, commentator Matt Edgar recalled predicting Nijman's trajectory back in November. "We sat here in November looking ahead to the world championship and I said Nijman is about to make lifestyle changes and keep an eye on him," Edgar said. "Those lifestyle changes have been made. He's now committed to darts on a full-time basis. He's stepped away from the job and he's in a very, very good position away from the oche and that's 90 per cent of the battle."
Edgar's framing of off-oche stability as "90 per cent of the battle" resonates with a broader pattern in professional darts. The sport's physical demands are modest compared to most, but the mental and logistical strain of sustained competition across a full ProTour season is considerable. Players who are distracted by work commitments, financial uncertainty, or the friction of trying to sustain a professional darts career alongside another occupation often find their performance ceiling constrained by fatigue and divided focus rather than skill. The ProTour calendar is particularly unforgiving in this respect: events are clustered across consecutive days, travel is frequent, and preparation time between tournaments is limited. Nijman, by committing full-time, has removed those constraints.
"I thought he would step it up but I didn't think he would step it up to the level he has now," Edgar continued. "I can't see him doing anything but transferring it now to the main stages. He's working very, very hard off the oche. He's going to be a breakthrough talent." The phrase "breakthrough talent" applied to someone already collecting £15,000 top prizes might seem understated, but Edgar's point is about translation: floor events and televised major stages demand different things from a player mentally, and the real test of whether Nijman's 2026 represents a sustainable shift rather than a purple patch will come when the cameras are on and the arenas are full.
Van Gerwen's Winless Run and What It Signals
The absence of a ProTour win for Van Gerwen this season is not simply a statistical footnote. For a player of his standing, the ProTour has historically been where momentum is built between the major televised events that define careers. Winning on the floor keeps rankings healthy, keeps confidence sharp, and keeps opponents slightly wary. A prolonged absence from the winners' column at this level, regardless of how Van Gerwen performs on the major stage, shifts the psychological dynamic in rooms where he is competing against precisely the kind of ascending talent that Nijman represents.
His third-round loss to Suljovic in Hildesheim was not a collapse; a 6-4 scoreline against a player who had taken a commanding 4-1 lead suggests Van Gerwen was competitive in the later legs. But competitive is not the descriptor that has defined his ProTour appearances for most of his career. The expectation around Van Gerwen has always been dominance, and anything short of that is measured against a standard he himself set over many years. That standard now includes winning five titles in a year, a benchmark Nijman has matched in 2026 without Van Gerwen adding a single win to his own tally.
Analytically, what makes Nijman's emergence particularly awkward for Van Gerwen is nationality. Dutch darts has been structured around MVG for so long that any younger compatriot with genuine ProTour pedigree inevitably invites comparison. The question of who the best Dutch player of all time is remains an open historical debate, but the more pressing question for 2026 is which Dutch player is the most dangerous right now on the floor circuit. On current evidence, the answer is not Van Gerwen.
Verdict: Nijman Is Building Something Durable
Players Championship 14 in Hildesheim will be remembered primarily as the event where Nijman matched a nine-year-old record and collected his fifth title of the season, but the manner of victory is at least as significant as the outcome. Producing his best average of the day in the final, sustaining four consecutive ton-plus averages through the knockout rounds, and doing all of it in just his twelfth floor appearance of 2026 points to a player whose form is structured rather than accidental.
The circuit now heads to Leicester for Players Championship Events 15 and 16 on 11 and 12 May. If Nijman adds to his tally there, the conversation around him will inevitably become louder and more urgent. If Van Gerwen finds his way to a first ProTour win of the season in Leicester, some of the pressure eases. But the shape of 2026 on the floor has already been drawn, and right now it belongs to a 25-year-old who gave up his day job to chase it properly. Few sporting gambles have paid off so quickly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nijman won the opening leg after Hopp busted 61, then followed with an 88 checkout to lead 2-0. He extended that to 6-0 with four consecutive legs that included an 84 outshot on the bullseye and a 140 checkout. Hopp took one leg in the seventh before Nijman broke back and sealed the match with a 15-dart hold, finishing at a 104.62 average.
The 104.62 average was his best performance of the entire day, not just the final. PDC ProTour events require players to compete through six or seven consecutive knockout matches in a single day, so producing a peak performance in the last match rather than an early round points to an ability to raise concentration as pressure increases.
Van Gerwen was knocked out in the third round by Mensur Suljovic, losing 6-4. Suljovic took a 4-1 lead and defended it efficiently, though he himself was beaten by Tom Bissell in the quarter-finals and did not reach the final.
It was Hopp's first ProTour final since 2019, ending a seven-year gap in final appearances. The achievement moved him into the top ten of the Players Championship rankings and required him to win six or seven consecutive knockout matches on the day, often against seeded opponents in the later rounds.
Van Gerwen has yet to win a PDC ProTour event in the 2026 season. This is notable because he set the benchmark of five ProTour titles in a single calendar year back in 2016, the very record Nijman has now matched, making the contrasting fortunes of the two Dutch players a prominent storyline on the floor circuit.
Sources: Reporting draws on PDC ProTour match results and player quotes from coverage of Players Championship 14 in Hildesheim, with bracket results and rankings context verified against PDC official records.