Josh Rock powered to his second European Tour title at the Austrian Darts Open, defeating Kevin Doets 8-6 in a thrilling final last night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rock secured his first title on the European Tour in almost two years in Graz, claiming five consecutive wins at the Stadthalle to take home the \u00a335,000 top prize. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Northern Irishman produced a clinical display to see off Patrik Kovacs 6-3 in his opening match on Saturday, missing just three darts at double to progress to Finals Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The World Cup champion then survived three match darts against Niko Springer to edge through a last-leg decider and reach the quarter-finals, where he put out a resurgent Cristo Reyes with a 6-4 victory, despite the Spaniard taking out a classy 170 checkout during the contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 25-year-old faced his World Cup partner Daryl Gurney in the semi-finals, delivering a ton-plus average to bulldoze past his compatriot 7-3 and set up a mouth-watering final against Doets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four breaks of throw opened the showpiece, although the Dutchman took the initiative with an 11-dart hold to lead 3-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rock rallied, taking out a show-stopping 170 finish – the fourth Big Fish checkout of the day – as he stormed into a 5-3 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doets remarkably kept pace, capitalising on a sloppy missed dart at single 20 on a 78 finish from Rock to break and level the contest at 6-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, the Northern Irishman redeemed his error in the next leg, taking out 78 with his last dart in hand to immediately break back and throw for the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 14-dart hold sealed Rock’s maiden Austrian Darts Open and customary green jacket, as he finished the match with a stellar 101.56 average – his highest of the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m very relieved,” confessed Rock, who finished runner-up in his first-ever European Tour final at the Austrian Darts Open in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“To come here this weekend and win is a massive achievement. I’m just happy that two Northern Irishmen got a green jacket this year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I made my first final against Jonny [Clayton] here, and when he got the jacket I was kind of jealous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Then Martin [Schindler] beat me last year in the semi-final and won it, so I was determined to win it this year, and I’m happy I finally got it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Kevin has been playing unbelievable this year, and he has proved it by winning his first ProTour on Monday. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “He’s only going to keep winning more, I’m just grateful I got the edge against him in this one.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doets – six days on from winning his first PDC ranking title at Players Championship 13 – threatened to break further ground with a first European Tour title in Graz, but fell at the final hurdle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Dutchman kicked off his campaign at the Stadthalle with an assured 6-3 triumph over Chris Landman on Friday, missing just two attempts at double throughout the contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was followed by another clinical display on Saturday, as the 28-year-old saw off World Championship semi-finalist Ryan Searle 6-2 with a 60% outer-ring success rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doets kicked off Finals Day by recording the same scoreline in victory over Ryan Joyce, before producing a the performance of the tournament to down Luke Woodhouse 6-3 in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Dutchman averaged 112.31 in a dazzling display, taking out a whopping 170 finish midway through the tussle before sealing the win with a 141 checkout to reach his second European Tour semi-final since April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once more, Doets delivered a brutal display of finishing, taking out 54% of his double attempts to dump out former World Champion Rob Cross to reach the first European Tour final of his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite losing out to Rock in a fantastic final, the 28-year-old produced the week of his darts career, climbing to 33rd in the world rankings – a mere \u00a3250 off of a place in the top 32.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I was sweating so much [in the final] – my hair is wet!” jibed Doets, who averaged north of 101 in defeat against Rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “He wouldn’t stop! Whatever I threw at him, he did better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “He was the deserved winner today, although I felt like I had my chances. It was a great final, and let’s hope for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I want to be a regular in the Premier League and become a top eight, top four player in the world, or World Champion one day – that’s everyone’s goal. We keep fighting for it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the other quarter-finals, Cross thrashed Andrew Gilding 6-1 thanks to a 50% doubles success rate, after also accounting for four-time Austrian Darts Open winner Michael van Gerwen in the last 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gurney took the scalp of 2025 Austrian Darts Open winner Martin Schindler with a comfortable 6-2 win, aided by a 23% disparity in outer-ring finishing between the pair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PDC ProTour season continues on Tuesday with a Players Championship double-header in Leicester from May 12-13, with the next instalment of the European Tour being the International Darts Open, taking place from May 22-24 in Riesa. Quarter-Finals<\/strong> Josh Rock powered to his second European Tour title at the Austrian Darts Open, defeating Kevin Doets 8-6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-12745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-darts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PRET06_doets_rock_FINAL_19--scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12751,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745\/revisions\/12751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/strong>
RESULTS<\/strong>
Round Three<\/strong>
Kevin Doets 6-2 Ryan Joyce
Luke Woodhouse 6-1 James Wade
Andrew Gilding 6-5 Kim Huybrechts
Rob Cross 6-4 Michael van Gerwen
Cristo Reyes 6-3 Danny Noppert
Josh Rock 6-5 Niko Springer
Martin Schindler 6-2 Ross Smith
Daryl Gurney 6-3 Madars Razma<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kevin Doets 6-3 Luke Woodhouse
Rob Cross 6-1 Andrew Gilding\u00a0
Josh Rock 6-4 Cristo Reyes
Daryl Gurney 6-2 Martin Schindler
Semi-Finals<\/strong>
Kevin Doets 7-3 Rob Cross
Josh Rock 7-3 Daryl Gurney
Final
<\/strong>Josh Rock 8-6 Kevin Doets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"