Robert Cross vs. Dirk van Duijvenbode: Voltage and Titan’s second clash, Voltage to triumph

Dirk van Duijvenbode will be up against Rob Cross for the next match of the International Darts Open, European Tour. The match will be played on March 13, Sunday, at Halle 39, of Hildesheim, Germany. Some of the most prominent names in Darts have been pitted against one another in this tournament, and Sunday’s match will be no different.

We will see the 2018 PDC World Darts Champion,’Voltage’ Rob Cross clash with the energetic ‘Titan,’ Dirk van.

Rob Cross hasn’t had the best of years in the Darts world recently, despite being the previous PDC champion. For starters, in the UK Open, he lost to Krzysztof Kciuk by 1-6.

The same was true for the PDC World Championship of 2021, where Gary Anderson emerged as a winner after a close match of 4-3 in his favor.

However, when it comes to the European Tour, Cross has had a much better start. He has played one game so far, on 12 March, where he beat Martijin Kleermaker by 6-2. Voltage started the European Championship in style with a 99.6 average and a whopping 60 percent on the doubles.

Just like Cross, Dirk has also had a promising start to the European Tour, with a win of 6-3 against Darius Labanauskas. Many dub Dirk’s performance as evidence that he is returning to full form. He managed to have five 180 shots, with an impressive average of 96.5.

2021 was a good year for the Titan as well. In the World Championship, he beat the likes of Bradley Brooks, Adam Hunt, and Glen Durrant to enter the quarter-finals, where he was eventually beaten by Gary Anderson, thereby ending his run in the tournament. However, his strong performance earned him an entry to the world’s top 32 dart players for the first time.

One player that was also on the list of people Dirk beat to proceed in the tournament was none other than Rob Cross! There is only one time the two seasoned players have come face to face. And this was at the PDC World Championship in December 2020. Here, the Titan won by 3-2.

This is sure to motivate Rob Cross to put up his best performance on Sunday’s match. After all, he holds a special relationship with the PDC Championship, considering that he became the champion of the tournament in his debut (he had gotten the status of a professional darts player only eleven months prior to the event).

If you look at the previous five matches of the two players, you might erroneously assume that the Titan has it in the bag. After all, he has won four of the five previous matches compared to Voltage’s two.

But, it is equally important to consider the average of the two players in the current tournament. Here, Rob Cross is definitely stronger than Dirk van.