Wattimena has zero sympathy for Joyce's luggage woes

JERMAINE WATTIMENA had zero sympathy for Ryan Joyce after grounding the luggage-less Geordie in Dortmund.

Relentless had a nightmare preparation for the first-round contest with his bag failing to arrive in Germany when he arrived off his flight for the European Championships.

Joyce had to go shopping and find darts to play with as he was also without his usual on-stage clothing and the 41-year-old was unable to get into full rhythm as he slipped to a 6-3 loss.

However, having been ruthless on the stage, Wattimena was just the same afterwards when he was quizzed about his victim's plight and reckons it is "stupid" not to put key items such as darts into hand luggage to ensure they reach the destination.

Wattimena said: "When you travel out in the darts, I think, to be honest, most times we more travel to England than English people travel to here. But, if I can say, you have to be stupid because what I'm always doing is my shirt, my darts, everything that I need, I do it in my backpack, so I always have clothes when I arrive.

"When my suitcase [is] lost, I can always play darts with my own darts, my own shirt, everything what I have. But there's some dart players never learn."

Asked how he got his darts onto a plane in hand luggage, he added: "Because you can put [take] your points out. Now, most darts players can put your points out and put it in their hand luggage as well. There's no problem at all."

Merciless off the board, it was the same on it from The Machine Gun as the 2024 runner-up took a firm grip on the game from the outset.

Joyce, understandably, struggled to get going in the early stages of the match after the pre-event turmoil and dropped 5-0 down with missed darts at doubles adding to his frustration.

At that stage, the writing was on the wall, although, to his immense credit, he fought and scrapped to get three legs onto the board and ask some questions.

Joyce also had a chance to make it 5-4 and add to the Dutchman's tensions, but failed to grasp it and the Netherlands ace finished the job.