The first WDF tournament in Croatia was played in the beautiful surroundings of the Rebuy Stars club in Zagreb. Excellent organization, excellent playing space, high-quality players from about 20 countries, live TV broadcast and two days of socializing with excellent dart players are the features of the first WDF Croatian Open/Masters tournament.

Already in the very announcement of the tournament, it was clear that we were in for top darts with all the names that participated in it. The favorites mostly lived up to expectations on both days, with only a few minor or major surprises. On Saturday, 127 senior men and 18 senior women gathered, while on the second day, 101 senior men and 24 senior women performed.

Andy Baetens and Aleta Wajer
At the end of the first day, the second seed of the tournament, the Belgian Andy Baetens, celebrated in the final against the current leader in the WDF ranking, Jelle Klaasen from the Netherlands. How well the Belgian played throughout the day is also shown by the fact that he played the entire tournament with an average of over 94, which is a very high standard.

Among Croatian players, Danijel Bartolić had an excellent performance, losing only in the semi-finals to the later winner of the tournament, while in the second semi-final the aforementioned Klaasen celebrated against the excellent Romanian Laszlo Kadar. Previously, Klaasen eliminated two more of Croatian players, Neven Rešetar and Marko Janjić, who also showed a good game.

Aletta Wajer from the Netherlands celebrated against Jitka Cisarova from the Czech Republic.

That the first day was not a coincidence, the winners of Saturday's tournament confirmed on Sunday. Namely, Andy Baetens and Aletta Wajer repeated their triumphs, while Jelle Klaasen and Jitka Cisarova again had to settle for second place. Unlike the first day, Croatia had semi-finalists in both categories on Sunday. In the women's category, it was Jasminka Adamić-Mrnjec, while in the men's category, Filip Ljubenko won the semifinals with a great game.

Unfortunately, both of our Croatian representatives were defeated in the semi-finals by later winners, Filip lost 4:2 to Baetens, who again showed excellent darts, while Adamić-Mrnjec lost to Wajer 4:0. Congratulations to all our representatives for good games on both days.

The youth tournament was played in the 8-ball club
As we announced earlier, the youth part of the tournament was played at the 8 ball club in Zagreb - Sesvete. Andras Borbely from Hungary showed absolute dominance.

With this kind of organization, atmosphere and quality of the game, this is certainly the best recommendation for the future, and the feedback from the WDF only confirms that accepting the Croatian Darts Federation's candidacy for this tournament was fully justified.

Already next year, we expect an even better organization, even more famous names and many more Croatian players.

Source: hps-dart.hr