Michael van Gerwen says Peter Wright should retire from darts and was “not surprised” the two-time world champion was knocked out in the second round of the World Championship.
Wright was whitewashed 3-0 by Germany’s Arno Merk on Tuesday as an already difficult 2025 ended with an early exit at Alexandra Palace.
Van Gerwen’s comments come a week after Wright claimed the Dutchman’s “vision is probably going”.
“I’m not really surprised by his performance because he’s been playing c*** lately,” Van Gerwen said after his 3-1 win over William O’Connor.
“I think it’s time for him to retire anyway.”
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Michael van Gerwen responds to claims at the World Darts Championships from Peter Wright that his eyesight might be going
Since losing his opening match at the World Championship at the end of 2023, Wright has been on a largely downward spiral and dropped down the rankings, with the 55-year-old almost certainly set to fall outside the top 32 following this year’s tournament at Alexandra Palace.
He won just two matches in the entire 2024 Premier League Darts series and has failed to go beyond the quarter-finals in any televised ranking tournaments in the last two years.
Gary Anderson, another Scottish veteran and two-time world champion, says Wright needs to be given “a bit of time”.
“We can’t play well all the time. People think we’re robots and you’ve just got to play well all the time or a bad couple of games it’s ‘he’s finished, he’s retiring’,” he said.
“Just give folk a break, you know. We can’t keep doing that day in and day out. We’ve seen Michael van Gerwen do that for probably the last decade. He has a blimp and it’s ‘that’s it, he’s finished’.”
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Arno Merk thrashed Peter Wright in the second round of the World Championship
Mardle: Wright should not make knee-jerk reaction decision about future
Sky Sports Darts’ Wayne Mardle:
“It was an awful watch – watching a champion, a legend of our sport, someone who has helped the sport grow, I didn’t enjoy it one bit.
“I don’t know what questions Peter will ask himself – whether it’s like ‘it’s fine, I will carry on. I love the game’. And I hope that happens.
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Take a look at some of the Christmas outfits that Peter Wright has treated the Alexandra Palace crowd to over the years
“He’s always said ‘I don’t want to retire, I love it’ so I don’t want him to have a knee-jerk reaction because it’s happened at the World Championship.
“If you play like that elsewhere, it’s OK. You don’t really think about it but when you do it at the World Championship, and I know this because I’ve done it, you end up questioning whether you are good enough to compete ever again.
“And it’s about competing, about winning. He’s a winner. I hope he’s OK because you will think about that. That sleepless night stuff, I hope he doesn’t make one of these knee-jerk reactions like we have seen from other players.
“He’s been a classy ambassador for darts – brings that fun but also brings that amazing ability and a touch of class.”
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