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It’s been a turbulent opening few months of the season for Gerwyn Price, from injury and illness issues to a downturn in form that resulted in him relinquishing his world number one tag, and he has now vowed to be more selective with his events.
Spring is often a busy period for the world’s elite players, with the Premier League taking place as well as plenty of European Tour and other ranking events, and former world champion Price has received little opportunity to reinvigorate himself.
Price managed to secure a hat-trick of International Darts Open titles earlier this year as well as picking up a Players Championship accolade, although the Welshman sits sixth in the Premier League and has found it difficult to nurse a hand problem.
“My hand’s fine – it doesn’t hurt, but I’m not holding the dart right, I’m not releasing the dart right because my mind’s not right and I’m overthinking every time I’m holding the dart and when I’m throwing,” Price expressed in an interview with Online Darts TV.
“Every week I seem to be getting a little bit better and, I’m not just saying this, but I need the Premier League to hurry up and finish and then I can get on with just knuckling down and getting into the ranking events.
“The Premier League takes everything out of you, it doesn’t give you any time to relax and fix things – you’re just constantly on the go. I’m looking forward to hopefully getting in the top four and, if not, getting that behind me and concentrating on the rest of the year.
“I haven’t given up [on qualifying for the play-offs] – there’s still four or five weeks to go and I can go and win 25 points. Winning five out of five is possible when my mind’s right. You’ve only got to win three games, but that’s easier said than done, and my mind’s not right at the minute.”
Price has only managed to seal weekly honours on the one occasion during this year’s revamped Premier League, when producing a blistering Belfast display and recording astronomical averages in excess of the 105 mark in all three of his matches.
The Markham man provided a damning verdict on the new format for the darting extravaganza, claiming it to be ‘unfair’ on the players in terms of opponents and how many matches they are having to complete, and preferred a return to the more familiar format from next year.
Candidly expressing his thoughts during last week’s popular Armageddon exhibition, Price also made known that he would be skipping a couple of European Tour events, including this weekend’s Austrian Darts Open, having already missed two of the three tournaments that have taken place this year through illness or injury.
“It’s too much for the players to play all those games on a Premier League night,” added Price. “You wouldn’t see Premier League teams playing three games in one night in football or rugby. You go out and play your one game, you know roughly what time you’re playing and you concentrate on your one game.
“There’s too many tournaments and that’s why I’m missing out. I’m going to miss a lot of ranking events, I’m just going to take some time out. I’m going to miss one or two of the European Tours coming up – I don’t think I’m going to go to Graz next week.
“I’m also going to miss some ProTours and that’s basically because it’s all too much and I am literally, with an injury, burning myself out. You feel obliged to go to every tournament, chasing ranking points, but I’ve realised now that you can’t do that – you just burn yourself out.
“I’m going to miss a couple of ranking events and once the Premier League is over, I’m going to recharge the batteries and look forward to the big ranking events coming up towards the end of the year.
“It means more and it’s you’re livelihood. I love the Premier League and I’d love to get to the play-offs, but sometimes you just haven’t got the motivation and don’t get me wrong the crowd doesn’t help. I love playing in the ranking events, that’s the bread and butter.”
