You come at the king, you'd better not miss.
Dimitri Van den Bergh had a quiet word with Michael van Gerwen in the second set of their World Darts Championship semi-final on Monday night. The Belgian appeared to be telling his opponent to stand back, and to give him a bit more space at the oche.
Van Gerwen didn't budge.
Instead, he shook his head and rolled his eyes. Van den Bergh did likewise in response, but what he didn't do was rise to the challenge as, less than a minute later, the Dutchman continued on his merry-way to eight legs in a row.
Van den Bergh poked the bear. Van Gerwen did what a bear does.
It was only a couple of darts later when Van Gerwen took out the big fish (170) - the biggest checkout available on the board - before staring his opponent out of it on his way back to base.
By that stage, Van den Bergh was looking down, but this was about to get a hell of a lot worse. Van Gerwen appears to thrive in tense situations and that's exactly how it was here, as he blitzed his lower-scoring opponent, and landed the doubles whenever they arose.
And that was very, very often.
https://twitter.com/SkySportsDarts/status/1610035266248392706
Van de Bergh's issue, as you'll see above, was with van Gerwen encroaching into the encroachment zone. Dancing Dimitri had asked him to take a step back, but MVG didn't move.
https://twitter.com/SkySportsDarts/status/1610036203520237569
Van Gerwen proceeded to savage his opponent and, having beaten Chris Dobey in the quarters by 5-0, he steam-rolled his way to a second successive whitewash. The pair did shake hands after the game to show that there was no ill-feeling over the clash.
"I don't really know what his problem was. He was losing the game, so he had to say something," van Gerwen said afterwards.
"Dimitri sensed Michael on his back," said John Part afterwards.
"There was a bit of needle," added Wayne Mardle, "but what was quite funny was that it ended with Michael taking out a 170. Dimitri is a world class operator, but then he trudged off. Michael just did a number on him."
He will face stiffer opposition on Tuesday night, however, when he takes on Michael Smith in the final. 'Bully-boy' defeated Gabriel Clemens 6-2 earlier in the night to qualify for his third final in five years but van Gerwen hit hime with some words of warning after the game.
"He's not going to stop me. No-one's going to stop me."
Like van Gerwen, the Manchester native is a high scorer though he will have to improve his percentages on the doubles if he wants to compete with Mighty Mike.
