Double Qualifying Success For Duo

John Michael (Lawrence Lustig, PDC)

JOHN MICHAEL and Michael Plooy enjoyed a qualifying double to win spots in the year's first two PDC European Tour events at Thursday's double-header in Hildesheim.

The night saw both the Host Nation Qualifier and South & West Europe Qualifier for the HappyBet German Darts Championship staged ahead of the main event this weekend at Halle 39.

The German quartet of Robert Allenstein, Bernd Roith, Martin Schindler and Stefan Stoyke all won through to secure places in this weekend's £135,000 tournament, which begins on Friday.

They were joined in qualifying by Dutch aces Christian Kist, Ryan De Vreede, Jan Dekker, Jermaine Wattimena and Michael Plooy, Belgium's Dimitri Van den Bergh, Austria's Michael Rasztovits and Greece's John Michael as they won through the South & West Europe Qualifier.

In addition, the South & West Europe Qualifier for the HappyBet German Darts Masters, to be held in Jena from April 15-17, also took place as eight players secured their spot in the Easter tournament.

Greek number one Michael and Plooy, a 32-year-old from Damwald in the Netherlands who will make his European Tour debut in Hildesheim, secured a double success by qualifying for the Jena event.

Austrian pair Rowby-John Rodriguez and Zoran Lerchbacher, Begium's Ronny Huybrechts and Dutch trio Dirk van Duijvenbode, Sven Groen and Jeffrey de Graaf completed the eight qualifiers for next month's event.

The HappyBet German Darts Championship will be broadcast online for PDCTV-HD Subscribers worldwide through www.livepdc.tv, and also streamed through a series of bookmakers' websites.

HappyBet German Darts Championship
Host Nation Qualifiers

HN1 Robert Allenstein
HN2 Bernd Roith
HN3 Martin Schindler
HN4 Stefan Stoyke

South & West Europe Qualifiers
EQ1 Christian Kist
EQ2 Ryan De Vreede
EQ3 Dimitri Van den Bergh
EQ4 Jermaine Wattimena
EQ5 John Michael
EQ6 Michael Plooy
EQ7 Jan Dekker
EQ8 Michael Rasztovits

HappyBet German Darts Masters
South & West Europe Qualifiers

EQ1 Dirk van Duijvenbode
EQ2 Sven Groen
EQ3 Jeffrey de Graaf
EQ4 Ronny Huybrechts
EQ5 Zoran Lerchbacher
EQ6 Michael Plooy
EQ7 Rowby-John Rodriguez
EQ8 John Michael