Emerging darts talent Ricardo Pietreczko has given his say on the rowdy crowd at Alexandra Palace.
The German world no.34 heads into this winter’s World Championships in the form of his life, having picked up his best finishes in all but two of the PDC premier events during 2024.
In the last Ally Pally event a year ago, he reached the last 32, but he and his fellow countrymen were drawn into debated about a huge influx of German support.
Eventual champion Luke Humphries joked that he ‘pooed his pants’ during his win over Pietreczko due to the support behind him, and Scott Williams later had to apologise for making a reference to the World Wars after his victory against Martin Schindler.
‘Pikachu’ heads into this year’s event as one of Germany’s biggest hopes, and thinks that there should be stronger punishments from fans who overdo it and impact the game.
“This whistling and stuff like that – nobody likes that,” he said before opening his campaign against Xiaochen Zong.
“People always say that you have to be professional enough to block it all out. The booing and the background noise, you stop hearing them at some point.
“But when you hear a shrill whistle like that, you lose your concentration completely. Anyone who disrupts the game should no longer be part of the event.”
Pietreczko’s best premier event result came at the European Championships this year when he reached the quarter finals, but he has far bigger aspirations this time around.
“I always say that I go to a tournament because I want to win. I said that last year,” he explained.
One of his closest finishes to a win came this year at the Belgian Darts Open in March when he lost 7-3 in the semi-finals to British phenomenon and eventual winner Luke Littler.
That match was overshadowed by his reaction to a man 12 years younger than him trying to showboat.
As he stormed to victory, Littler lined up an incredibly difficult 147 checkout via a triple 19, double 20 and bullseye, but it didn’t work out.
And on completion, Pietreczko pulled him close during a handshake and went nose-to-nose in bizarre scenes.
Littler looked baffled, and ‘Pikachu’ later went to explain his reaction on social media, writing: “Well, I really appreciated him being able to play a game like that at such an age, but I hope his arrogance punishes him.”
On his part, Littler explained it was one of his favourite finishes, and that Pietreczko shouldn’t have let it get to him.
He said: “That game, I just, I didn’t know what I did wrong but a lot of people were saying it was when I was on the 147 finish and I went for T19 and I tried going tops, bull, because I love tops and if I hit the tops I would have fancied myself for bull.
“But I missed it but then he let that get to him throughout the game and I had a job to do.”
