Wesley Plaisier

**Wesley Plaisier** (born 4 March 1990) is a Dutch professional darts player who currently plays in World Darts Federation (WDF) and Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. He is a multiple silver medalist of the WDF Europe Cup. He is a World Masters

## Career

Plaisier initially played a few international tournaments in his home country. In 2019, he tried to get a PDC Tour Card, but to no avail. He did then qualify as one of the Association Member qualifiers for the 2019 European Darts Open. He confidently defeated Jyhan Artut in the first round, but lost in the second round to James Wade. He also qualified for the 2019 Dutch Darts Masters, where he lost to Brendan Dolan in first round and qualified for the 2019 European Darts Matchplay, where initially lost to Jamie Hughes. In this year, he started in the 2019 World Masters, but lost in the first round against Danny Baggish.

In 2020, he played at the 2020 Belgian Darts Championship, where he beat Benjamin Pratnemer in the first round. Plaisier then had no chance against Gerwyn Price and lost second round match. Two years later, he performed well at the 2022 German Darts Grand Prix, beating Jim Williams, Joe Cullen and Dirk van Duijvenbode to reach the quarter-final stage, where he was beaten in a sudden-death leg by the tournament's eventual winner Luke Humphries. In the 2022 UK Open he lost in first round to Radek Szagański. During 2022 Austrian Darts Open he beat Matt Campbell in the first round match, but he had to admit defeat to Nathan Aspinall in the second round.

In this year, he was able to qualify for five of the thirteen PDC European Tour events. In September he won a tournament on the PDC Challenge Tour in the final against two-time major winner and reigning senior world champion Robert Thornton. After a win against Dave Chisnall in the second round of the 2022 Gibraltar Darts Trophy, he nearly missed qualification for the European Championship. In fact, he was on par with the £14,000 in prize money he had earned Rank 30, but in this case the performance in the last four tournaments was decisive, which meant rank 33. Since he lost the following game again to Luke Humphries, he missed out on taking part in championship. In August 2022, he won Belgium Open. A month later he won his first Professional Darts Corporation tournament at the PDC Challenge Tour, beating Robert Thornton in the final match.

At the end of the year, he achieved the greatest success of his career by winning the 2022 World Masters. In the group-stage, he did not leave any space for his rivals to compete. He started the second round with a confident victory over Carlo Ros. In the third round, make a whitewash against Shaun McDonald. In the fourth round, only in the last leg he defeated Chris Landman. In the next rounds he defeated Christian Gödl and Davy Proosten more confidently. In the semi-finals he was slightly better than Danny Lauby and proceeded to the final against Barry Copeland, whom he defeated by 7–2 in legs. Plaisier also took part in the World Open that took place on the same weekend, but here he was eliminated in third round against Leonard Gates.

At the end of January 2023, he played in the 2023 Dutch Open and reached a quarter-finals in the singles, where he lost to Jelle Klaasen. In August, he won the title at the Antwerp Open, and just a few days later he won his second PDC Challenge Tour title. In September, Plaisier reached the semi-finals as an associate qualifier at the 2023 German Darts Open. There he only failed in the decider against Stephen Bunting. At the end of September, Plaisier took part in the 2023 WDF World Cup for the Netherlands. In the singles competition, he failed in third round to Filip Ljubenko. In doubles he played his way to the quarter-finals together with Berry van Peer. This was the end against Haupai Puha and Ben Robb from New Zealand. In the team competition Netherlands took the title. Shortly afterwards he reached the semi-finals at the Belfry Open and quarter-finals at the Bruges Open.

Plaisier narrowly missed his first PDC World Darts Championship by losing in the final of the West European Qualifier against the Thibault Tricole. For this he took part in the 2023 WDF World Darts Championship, where he won his opening duel against Reece Colley. This was followed by a victory over James Richardson before falling to Dennis Nilsson in the quarter-finals.

## World Championship results

### WDF

* 2023: Quarter-finals (lost to Dennis Nilsson 1–4) (sets)

## References

1. ↑ 2022 Interwetten German Darts Grand Prix Day One (en).
2. ↑ 2022 Interwetten German Darts Grand Prix Day Two (en).
3. ↑ Brilliant Humphries wins Interwetten German Darts Grand Prix (en).