Van Veen happy to break the dreaded Euro curse

GIAN VAN VEEN admits he was happy to break a curse as he tries to block out talk of title defences.

The 2025 European Championship winner got his campaign off to a successful start with a 6-4 success over Andrew Gilding.

Van Veen was not as his thrilling best during the clash with Goldfinger, but delighted to get the job done in a dangerous format and ensure he didn't join a list of past champions who had made quickfire exits.

He reflected on the first-round triumph and said: "Yeah, difficult. Everyone is talking about defence, but I don't see it that way. Of course, that's what it's spoken about, but for me, it's just another tournament. That's how I'm treating it as well. At least that's what I say to myself, but as soon as you are on that stage, you don't want to go out first round and, luckily, I didn't.

"Andrew put me under pressure every leg. He missed a couple of darts and I took my chances. If he would have hit that 70 to 5-5, it would have been a totally different game, but defence is up and running.

"It's just that short format that always puts you under a bit more pressure. After the game I was told about the previous champions [who had] lost in the first round. Luckily, I didn't know that before the game as it would have been extra pressure on myself. It's nice to break the curse.

"Now best of 19, I think that will help my game, even though it's against a tricky opponent in Luke [Woodhouse]. But it's something I am looking forward to and, thankfully, I got this one out of the way."

It was announced recently that Van Veen is changing equipment manufacturers, but he stuck with his tried-and-tested kit for the Gilding clash as he explained: "Old stuff, old flights. You even saw a Red Dragon on my stems tonight. I have been playing with them for the last three, four years. I am going to be switching to Winmau stems, Winmau flights, Winmau little bit different dart.

"But for now, even though it got announced past Tuesday, two days later we are here in the first round of a major, so this didn't seem for me a good time for switching, especially with this one, then the Grand Slam, Players Championship Finals and World Championships, so we'll see in the next couple of weeks, maybe even after the Worlds.

"But that is the benefit of having a transfer in-house. Winmau doesn't mind me playing with Red Dragon stuff, so that's good for me and, as long as I get good results and win a lot of games, everyone will be happy."