Michael Smith whitewashed fourth seed Dave Chisnall 6-0 on the opening night of the 2024 European Championship in Dortmund yesterday. It’s an important win as Smith starts a period now where he is defending a lot of ranking money in the PDC Order of Merit.
Michael Smith had a dream start to his Machineseeker European Championship campaign after destroying fourth seed Dave Chisnall 6-0.
Some heavy finishes with successive 104, 148 and 161 checkouts played a big part in Smith quickly dispatching one of the tournament favourites, and this is just the start Smith needed in this tournament.
Smith was runner-up in the 2022 European Championship earning him £60,000 in prize money.
He is now defending that money this weekend as the PDC Order of Merit is based on a 2-year period, but Michael van Gerwen is the only player who could overtake him at the moment if he wins.
That won’t be the main concern for Smith though at the back end of this year.
He also won the Grand Slam of Darts and the World Darts Championship in 2022/23 and with both tournaments coming up soon, Smith has a total of £710k in prize money to defend from these three major tournaments combined!
While Smith is aware he could lose his position in terms of ranking money (he could drop from 2nd to outside the top 16), he’s stated there’s something that can’t be taken away from him…
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Michael Smith on Defending ‘Substantial’ Ranking Money
Smth is currently 2nd in the PDC Order of Merit but has a lot of prize money to defend over the next few months (upwards of £700k).
When asked if “defending a king’s ransom” in prize money at the back end of this year is something that Smith is thinking about, he responded:
“Not at all. If I lose first round of everything then I lose first round of everything.
“You can’t take 22 and 23 away from me.
“That’s one thing you can’t do.
“You can take the money off my ranking but I don’t lose the titles so I really don’t give a… one of them.
“If I fall down the rankings then I know next year I’ve got nothing to defend because I took a year out so I can get myself back up to where I need to be, and where I need to be is number 1.
“I know I can do it but as for now I really don’t care what I’m doing.“
See the full interview provided by Darts Now below:
A few months back, Smith claimed “The pressure is off” after winning the World Cup of Darts with partner Luke Humphries.
As he said, he took his foot off the pedal after winning the 2023 World Championship and went on to have a barren spell for title wins lasting well over a year – of which he was number 1 in the world for a large portion.
If he doesn’t pick up the pace at the back end of this season, who knows where he could end up in the rankings come January!
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