Van den Bergh BOOED by fans as he beats world champ Humphries in sudden-death UK Open thriller after timewasting stunt
DIMITRI Van den Bergh’s slowing down tactics almost cost him the UK Open title, according to ITV pundit Chris Mason.
The Belgian snatched a last-gasp 11-10 win over world champion Luke Humphries in a tense final in Minehead on Sunday night.
Not known, clear with picture deskDimitri Van Den Bergh takes a long break ahead of the 19th leg[/caption]
A miffed Luke Humphries then fought back to level the match
But the crowd started to boo after Van den Bergh took an extended drink break when leading the match 10-8.
Humphries could be seen looking visibly fed up as he waited for Van den Bergh to step towards the oche.
But, after hearing the boos, he then gestured to the crowd to stop jeering as Van den Bergh was throwing.
The moment appeared to throw the world number 14 off his game.
Incredibly, he missed six match darts over the next two legs as he choked before getting over the finishing line.
In the end it went to a deciding leg and Humphries missed two match darts to win a fourth successive major title with Van den Bergh winning the £110,000 top prize.
Former player Mason said: “The one stand-out thing for me. Dimitri was nearly the creator of his own downfall.
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“Luke’s the kind of player who likes to just get on with it.
“To create the perfect match like we’ve seen between Luke Littler and Damon Heta, you’ve got to have a good dance partner.
“Dimitri was anything but that. The crowd are so knowledgeable, they picked up on that quite early on. They turned on him. He was very fortunate in the end to get over the line.”
Humphries insisted he wasn’t “angry” with Van den Bergh’s slow tactics.
Humphries said: “I wasn’t angry with him. I’m used to Dimitri being quite a flowy player, quite a good pace to play against.
“He’s completely different now. He’s probably one of the toughest players to play. He’s incredibly slow and takes a long, long time to take his darts out. It was quite tough to follow the rhythm.
“The crowd were on his back. I tried to stop them from booing and whistling. But the crowd made their mind up.
“I thought when he slowed everything down when he was 10-8 up I thought, it’s not a good thing to do that. The crowd are getting on your back then. I thought I had him for a moment.”
World champion Humphries gestured to the crowd to stop booing his opponent
RexIn the end, Van Den Bergh managed to creep over the finish line[/caption]
