DE DECKER WENT INTO HIDING AFTER WORLDS EXIT

MIKE DE DECKER revealed he muted the entire darts world after crashing out of the World Championship.

World No19 De Decker suffered a shock first-round exit at Alexandra Palace, losing 3–2 to Kenyan debutant David Munuya.

‘The Real Deal’ has been unable to advance past the second round in six appearances at the major tournament.

De Decker admitted the defeat hit so hard that he deliberately restricted the PDC and every tungsten-related page from his Instagram feed.

He told Tungsten Tales: “That game kind of summed up my year.

“I had good patches and really bad patches, and that was one of the patches that wasn’t so good.

“It was kind of funny because I was 2–0 up and I started to get nervous.

“And then when he got his first set on the board, there was something in me that said, yeah, you’re going to lose this.

“That’s not a good thing to have when you’re 2–0 or 2–1 up.

“It’s in the past and it’s in 2025, so we’ll forget about it.

“It hurt too much to watch the Worlds. You can restrict certain pages on Instagram as well.

“So I restricted the PDC and all darts-related content pages. Yeah, I just couldn’t look at it.

“I’ve been trying to survive Christmas for the last five years.

“And then it’s just not working on that stage and it’s frustrating.”

The Belgian did not pick up a title on the ProTour or reach a quarter-final in a ranked major event last year.

De Decker feels that a recent change in his setup disrupted his rhythm at the oche and ultimately held back his performance.

He added: “Before I changed to Mission, I played with the same set of darts for like eight or nine years.

“So to then have to switch to a different setup, it took me longer to get used to them than I expected.

“Look at Josh Rock, he switched to Target and he played an amazing year.

“I need to get confidence in my setup. If something doesn’t feel right or something is off, then it just won’t work.”

Former Grand Prix champ De Decker is convinced he has finally broken through a long-standing psychological block

He continued: “I’ve made some steps that I didn’t think I was ever going to do.

“Privately then, and it’s been helping out a lot about how to deal with certain stuff and certain moments.

“I’m in a better place with my darts and mentally than last year. I want to do well in every tournament and I just want to be playing well again.

“I don’t necessarily have to win titles – just the feeling that I’m playing well would be a massive boost after last year.

“I do a lot of best-of-19 games, so first to 10. And my average has been up in the high 90s, low 100s.

“That’s practice – everyone can play well in practice. It’s on the stage and in the PDC tournaments that you have to show that.”

De Decker insists the Premier League is his number one dream, even though reaching it still feels a distant challenge.

He said: “Everyone wants to be in the Premier League, or everyone wants to be in the Premier League just once.

“It’s the biggest honour in darts in my eyes, because you get selected as one of the top eight players of the world.

“It would be a massive, massive thing. But realism remains – I have to play a lot better than I did last year.”

Image by Taylor Lanning.