Gabriel Clemens seemed to be running out of superlatives. Most recently, after his famous victories at the 2023 Darts World Cup, especially after the quarter-final success against world number one Gerwyn Price, there was talk of puns with his nickname “Gaga” from “Giga-Gaga” or a “Gaga Gala”. The wording left little room for another triumph for the Saarlander – who then failed to materialize in the duel with last year’s finalist Michael Smith on Monday evening. Clemens clearly lost 2:6 after sets.
But despite missing the final, his Giga-Gaga-Gala appearances at this World Cup will be remembered, for which Clemens will be rewarded with prize money of £100,000. He has never earned so much in one fell swoop on the darts tour. He moves up into the top 20 players in the world category. According to reports, there is a chance that Clemens will receive one of the four coveted wildcards from the Professional Darts Corporation for the Darts Premier League 2023 – a prestigious invitational tournament that will have a total of £1m at stake.
After the World Cup defeat, he congratulated the Englishman Smith fairly with a hug. He had used his first match dart on the double 20 – and thus, if you will, triggered a déjà vu in the German.
Clemens found out two years ago how it feels to beat a top favorite and then be eliminated. Back then he won in the third round against Peter Wright, then number two in the world. Clemens kept his nerves in the decisive sentence – before he lost them in the next round. In a duel with Krzysztof Ratajski, he missed seven match darts in the Sudden Death Leg.
The painful defeat, in which Clemens could not maintain his level of play, i.e. the average number of points per throw with three darts, compared to the round before, was probably the biggest disappointment of his career at the time. The sudden expectations, his own and those of the numerous German fans at Ally Pally, had obviously taken the necessary lightness from him. It was similar on Monday evening in the semifinals against Smith, who was number four. Because the three darts are still best thrown at the disc if they are easy to hold.
At the beginning of the match, Clemens held back. With furious throws, he challenged Smith, who had to muster over 110 points per throw in the first set to win it. In the meantime, both players have achieved ten perfect darts in a row. That was the level that was required for entry into the final.
Despite the deficit, Clemens, like against Price, did not let himself be put off – neither by the referee’s wrong score, nor by Smith’s high checkouts (161, 144, 106). In any case, the strength of the Saarlander is always staying true to himself. He equalized as a matter of course to 1: 1 and shortly afterwards to 2: 2 after sentences. All four rounds went into the so-called decision leg – ending with 3:2 legs.
The Englishman followed suit
It became apparent that the pressure on favorite Smith would increase the longer Clemens was able to keep the game open. But the Englishman stepped up and increased the pressure. He got set 5 in one go: with three clearly won sections. And then made the break to 4:2 with a spectacular shot into the Bull’s Eye. Smith was keen to outperform Clemens, partly out of respect for audience influence.
“Ally Pally is German, definitely,” Clemens said recently. As in the previous days, the arcade on a hill in London was in German hands, at least acoustically. The fans cheered Clemens’ throws frenetically again. Probably also because of his reserved, almost embarrassed appearance. There is almost nothing the people at Ally Pally like more than watching the dreams of a player like Clemens come true, who probably didn’t expect it himself.
And Clemens was once again inspired by the scenery. In the seventh set, he caught up two lost sections, but was unable to take his chance to check out the 150 value in the all-important deciding leg. Instead, Smith threw his arrow into double 8 – and landed a hit from which even Giga-Gaga Clemens could not recover.