# Ricardo Pietreczko

Ricardo Pietreczko (born 20 October 1994) is a German professional darts player. Nicknamed "Pikachu" after the character from Pokémon, he competes in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events, where he is currently ranked world number thirty. He won his maiden PDC title at the 2023 German Darts Championship and reached his first major quarter-final at the 2024 European Championship.

## Career

Pietreczko started playing darts at the age of 16 after his father put a dartboard in his room and he trained diligently before and after school. In 2014, he took part in qualifiers for PDC European Tour events, but was not able to qualify. At the national level, however, he was doing much better. He advanced to the semi-finals of the Super League Darts. In 2016, he took part in the 4 Nations Cup for the Germany team and reached the semi-finals in singles competition, where he lost to Wesley Harms 5–3 in legs.
At the beginning of 2017, he played at the Dinslaken Open and reached the final, where he lost to Daniel Zygla. As the third in the national ranking of qualifying tour for the WDF World Cup, he qualified to participate in the 2017 WDF World Cup as a representative of Germany. In the singles competition, he won the bronze medal, lost in the semi-final to Raymond Smith by 1–6 in legs. Pietreczko also made his debut at the 2017 World Masters, where he advanced to the fourth round. In his fourth round match, he lost to Neil Duff 3–0 in sets.
At the end of February 2018, Pietreczko won the Donnersberg Cup in Rockenhausen, and in mid-June he won the German Championship for the first time. At the beginning of September, Pietreczko qualified for a PDC European Tour event, the 2018 International Darts Open, but lost in the first round to Ryan Searle 6–4 in legs. The next day, Pietreczko won the DDV ranking tournament in Steinfurt. Pietreczko was appointed by the national federation to represent Germany at the 2018 WDF Europe Cup. In the singles competition, he advanced to the third round where he lost to Ross Montgomery. In pairs and team competition, he was eliminated in the earlier stage.
He played at the 2018 World Masters, where he advanced to the fifth round, where he lost to seeded Willem Mandigers 3–1 in sets. In mid-November, Pietreczko made a successful return to the Super League Darts, when he won the qualifier in Düsseldorf. In May 2019, he qualified for the 2019 European Darts Grand Prix, where he lost in first round match to Jamie Hughes by 1–6 in legs. In October 2020, Pietreczko achieved his first victory on the Professional Darts Corporation stage, during the 2020 European Darts Grand Prix. In the first round match, he beat Luke Woodhouse by 6–1 in legs, but in the second round match he lost to José de Sousa. In 2021, he participated in the PDC Challenge Tour events.

### 2022

In January 2022, Pietreczko earned a PDC Tour Card at PDC Q-School by finishing ninth on the European Q-School Order of Merit. In October, he reached his first semi-final on the PDC Pro Tour at Players Championship 28, a run that included wins over Ryan Meikle, Gabriel Clemens and Ross Smith. He was defeated by Luke Humphries 7–2. Pietreczko made his televised PDC debut at the 2022 Players Championship Finals and caused a major upset by beating number one seed Damon Heta 6–5 in the first round.

### 2023

In March 2023, Pietreczko reached his second Pro Tour semi-final at Players Championship 8; he defeated Jonny Clayton, Keegan Brown and Ross Smith before losing 7–2 to Krzysztof Ratajski. At the European Darts Open, he reached the quarter-finals, narrowly losing 6–5 to Rob Cross.
In October, Pietreczko won his first PDC title at the 2023 German Darts Championship – the final event on the 2023 European Tour. Having previously beaten George Killington and Stephen Bunting before a 7–6 win over world number two Michael van Gerwen in the semi-finals, he claimed the title by defeating two-time world champion Peter Wright 8–4 in the final without missing a dart at double. The victory saw him become the second German player to win a PDC ranking title after Max Hopp, while also securing him qualification for the European Championship.
In his European Championship debut, he won his first-round match 6–3 against defending champion Ross Smith. He was eliminated in the second round, losing 10–7 to Michael van Gerwen.

### 2024

Pietreczko reached the third round of the 2024 PDC World Championship in his PDC World Championship debut campaign. Despite a 3–1 lead over world number three Luke Humphries, he was eliminated from the tournament as Humphries came back to win 4–3.
In the first event of the 2024 European Tour, the Belgian Darts Open, he reached the semi-finals where he met 2024 World Championship runner-up Luke Littler. Pietreczko was defeated 7–3 but the tie was more remembered for its post-match incident, where Pietreczko confronted Littler unhappily. He later posted on Instagram that he hoped "his [Littler's] arrogance punishes him." In September, Pietreczko reached his second European Tour final at the Flanders Darts Trophy after beating Luke Humphries 7–4 to become the first German player to reach two European Tour finals. He was beaten in the final 8–6 by Dave Chisnall.
Pietreczko made his World Matchplay and World Grand Prix debuts in 2024. He was defeated 10–4 in the first round of the World Matchplay by Luke Humphries, who also eliminated him from the World Grand Prix in the second round.
Pietreczko reached the quarter-finals of the European Championship after victories over Damon Heta and Andrew Gilding. He was denied a place in the semi-finals by Danny Noppert, who came back from 9–7 down to defeat Pietreczko 10–9 in a deciding leg.

### 2025

After defeating Xiaochen Zong 3–0 in the first round of the 2025 World Championship, Pietreczko beat 28th seed Gian van Veen 3–1 to progress to the third round. He then secured a 4–1 victory over 2024 semi-finalist Scott Williams. In the fourth round, he only managed a three-dart average of 78.46 in a 4–0 defeat to Nathan Aspinall.

## World Championship results
### PDC

* 2024: Third round (lost to Luke Humphries 3–4)
* 2025: Fourth round (lost to Nathan Aspinall 0–4)

## Performance timeline

BDO
| Tournament | 2017 | 2018 |
| BDO Ranked televised events |||
| World Masters | 4R | 5R |
PDC
| Tournament | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| PDC Ranked televised events |||||
| World Championship | DNQ | DNQ | 3R | 4R |
| World Masters | DNQ | DNQ | DNQ | Prel. |
| UK Open | 2R | 2R | 4R | 4R |
| World Matchplay | DNQ | DNQ | 1R | |
| World Grand Prix | DNQ | DNQ | 2R | |
| European Championship | DNQ | 2R | QF | |
| Grand Slam | DNQ | RR | DNQ | |
| Players Championship Finals | 2R | 2R | DNQ | |
| Career statistics |||||
| Season-end ranking | 99 | 36 | 30 | |
PDC European Tour
| Season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 2018 | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | IDO 1R | EDT DNP |
| 2019 | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | ADO DNP | EDG 1R | Did not qualify | Did not qualify | Did not qualify | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate | Did not participate |
| 2020 | BDC DNP | GDC DNQ | EDG 2R | IDO DNP |
| 2023 | BSD DNQ | EDO QF | DNQ | DNQ | ADO 2R | DDC 1R | DNQ | DNQ | EDG 1R | EDM 2R | GDO 2R | HDT 1R | GDC W |
| 2024 | BDO SF | GDG 2R | IDO 3R | EDG 2R | ADO 2R | BSD 3R | DDC 2R | EDO 2R | GDC 3R | FDT F | HDT 3R | SDT 2R | CDO 3R |
| 2025 | BDO 2R | EDT | IDO | GDG | ADO | EDG | DDC | EDO | BSD | FDT | CDO | HDT | SDT | GDC |
PDC Players Championships
| Season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 |
| 2022 | BAR 2R | BAR 1R | WIG 2R | WIG 1R | BAR 1R | BAR 1R | NIE 1R | NIE 2R | BAR 1R | BAR 1R | BAR 1R | BAR 1R | BAR 1R | WIG 2R | WIG 2R | NIE 2R | NIE 1R | BAR 2R | BAR 2R | BAR 3R | BAR 1R | BAR 4R | BAR 4R | BAR 1R | BAR 2R | BAR 3R | BAR 2R | BAR SF | BAR 1R | BAR 1R |
| 2023 | BAR 1R | BAR 2R | BAR 4R | BAR 1R | BAR 1R | BAR 3R | HIL 1R | HIL SF | WIG 3R | WIG 2R | LEI 2R | LEI 1R | HIL 4R | HIL 2R | LEI 1R | LEI 3R | HIL 4R | HIL 2R | BAR 2R | BAR 2R | BAR 3R | BAR 4R | BAR QF | BAR 2R | BAR 1R | BAR 1R | BAR SF | BAR QF | BAR 4R | BAR 2R |
| 2024 | WIG 4R | WIG 2R | LEI 2R | LEI 3R | HIL 3R | HIL 2R | LEI 2R | LEI 1R | HIL 1R | HIL 2R | HIL 2R | HIL 1R | MIL 1R | MIL 1R | MIL 1R | MIL 1R | MIL 2R | MIL 1R | MIL 1R | WIG 1R | WIG 1R | MIL 1R | MIL 1R | WIG 3R | WIG 2R | WIG 2R | WIG 1R | WIG 1R | LEI 4R | LEI 1R |
| 2025 | WIG 1R | WIG 2R | ROS 4R | ROS 2R | LEI 1R | LEI 1R | HIL 2R | HIL 1R | LEI | LEI | LEI | LEI | ROS | ROS | HIL | HIL | LEI | LEI | LEI | HIL | HIL | MIL | MIL | MIL | HIL | HIL | LEI | LEI | LEI | WIG | WIG | WIG | WIG | WIG |
Performance Table Legend :
| W | Won the tournament | F | Finalist | SF | Semifinalist | QF | Quarterfinalist | #R RR Prel. | Lost in # round Round-robin Preliminary round | DQ | Disqualified |
| DNQ | Did not qualify | DNP | Did not participate | WD | Withdrew | NH | Tournament not held | #R RR Prel. | Lost in # round Round-robin Preliminary round | NYF | Not yet founded |