{"id":5916,"date":"2025-11-12T07:06:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T00:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=5916"},"modified":"2025-11-12T07:06:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T00:06:28","slug":"van-gerwen-rock-and-nijman-advance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/van-gerwen-rock-and-nijman-advance\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Gerwen, Rock and Nijman advance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Michael van Gerwen, Josh Rock and Wessel Nijman sealed their qualification to the knockout stages of the Mr Vegas Grand Slam of Darts, as the round-robin\u00a0phase reached a dramatic conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Day Four of the \u00a3650,000 event saw Groups E-H conclude at Wolverhampton&#8217;s WV Active Aldersley, with reigning champion Luke Littler setting up a blockbuster tie against Nijman in Round Two on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Littler, Danny Noppert and Niko Springer were already assured of their qualification prior to Tuesday&#8217;s play, and they were joined in the knockout stages by Van Gerwen, Rock, Nijman, Connor Scutt and Lukas Wenig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Gerwen overcame his great rival Gary Anderson to clinch top spot in Group G, averaging 108.45 to set up an all-Dutch affair against Noppert in Round Two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The three-time champion was imperious from start to finish against Anderson, condemning the Scottish icon to his first group stage exit in 18 Grand Slam appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very glad to go through and top the table, but there&#8217;s still a lot of work to do in this tournament,&#8221;\u00a0insisted the world number three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;You always need to try and find the right balance and mentality, and I felt comfortable tonight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m looking forward to playing Danny. He&#8217;s a fantastic player and he&#8217;s playing really well at the moment, but I know I can step up when it matters.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Springer relinquished top spot in Group G following his 5-3 defeat to\u00a0Women&#8217;s Series winner Beau Greaves, who won five straight legs to end her campaign on a high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rock and Nijman came through a star-studded Group F, with newly crowned European Champion Gian van Veen crashing out alongside Women&#8217;s World Matchplay champion Lisa Ashton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Veen was in pole position following back-to-back wins over the weekend, but Nijman&#8217;s whitewash win over Ashton set up a winner-takes-all clash against Rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reigning World Cup champion Rock produced a clinical display to dump out Van Veen, pinning five of his ten attempts at double to celebrate a 5-2 success and claim top spot in Group F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Obviously Gian beat me here last year, so it was good to put that right,&#8221; reflected Rock, who will take on Connor Scutt for a quarter-final berth on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I put myself under so much pressure because I knew I had to win, and I think Gian did exactly the same thing, but thankfully I got over the line.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scutt broke new ground in Wolverhampton with a hard-fought 5-3 win against Czech number one Karel Sedlacek, which saw him progress\u00a0to the last 16 of a TV ranking event for the second time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Elsewhere in Group E, Littler maintained his impeccable record in Wolverhampton with a 5-1 drubbing of Daryl Gurney, who exits without a win to his name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I knew I needed a few legs to finish top, so I&#8217;m really happy to make it three wins from three,&#8221; claimed Littler, who has won all ten of his matches on the Grand Slam stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Daryl was there and thereabouts tonight, but now it&#8217;s down to the business end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I always enjoy the longer format, and hopefully I can produce my best darts on Thursday.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was also a memorable night for Lukas Wenig, who continued his dream debut campaign at the Grand Slam to advance through Group H in top spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 31-year-old converted a 167 checkout on his way to a 5-1 victory against Cam Crabtree in another straight shoot-out, and Wenig&#8217;s reward will be a meeting against his fellow countryman Springer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wenig claimed top spot in Group H at the expense of Danny Noppert, who succumbed to Jonny Clayton in an absorbing start to Tuesday&#8217;s proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clayton defied a 107 average from Noppert to triumph in a deciding-leg thriller, overturning a 4-2 deficit to avoid a third consecutive defeat in the round-robin phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the knockout stages, world number one Luke Humphries will take on World Youth Championship runner-up Jurjen van der Velde, while Gerwyn Price continues his bid for a fourth Grand Slam title against German number one Martin Schindler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2022 Grand Slam champion Michael Smith faces world number eight Chris Dobey in another eye-catching clash, with Luke Woodhouse and Ricky Evans locking horns in Wednesday&#8217;s curtain-raiser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><br>GROUP RESULTS: <\/strong>Jonny Clayton 5-4 Danny Noppert (H); Beau Greaves 5-3 Niko Springer (G); Luke Littler 5-1 Daryl Gurney (E); Lukas Wenig 5-1 Cam Crabtree (H); Connor Scutt 5-3 Karel Sedlacek (E); Michael van Gerwen 5-2 Gary Anderson (G); Wessel Nijman 5-0 Lisa Ashton (F); Josh Rock 5-2 Gian van Veen (F)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael van Gerwen, Josh Rock and Wessel Nijman sealed their qualification to the knockout stages of the Mr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5917,"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-5916","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\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed.jpg",2000,1333,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed-1024x682.jpg",640,426,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed.jpg",2000,1333,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/international\/\" rel=\"category tag\">International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GSOD25_M3_Rock03_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916","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=5916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5918,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916\/revisions\/5918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}