The 2020

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European Championship was the thirteenth edition of the

Professional Darts Corporation The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) is a professional darts organisation in the United Kingdom, established in 1992 when a group of leading players split from the British Darts Organisation (BDO) to form what was initially called the World ...

's European Championship tournament, which saw the top players from the four European tour events compete against each other. The tournament took place from 29 October–1 November 2020 at the

König Pilsener Arena The Rudolf Weber-Arena (originally the Arena Oberhausen) is a multi-purpose arena, located in Oberhausen, Germany. Opening in 1996, the arena is a part of leisure and shopping center, CentrO. The venue was built in Neue Mitte Oberhausen, a form ...

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, in front of smaller, masked, socially distanced crowds, having been moved from its original venue of the

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. Rob Cross was the defending champion after defeating

Gerwyn Price Gerwyn Stephen Price (born 7 March 1985) is a Welsh professional darts player and former professional rugby union and rugby league player. Nicknamed "The Iceman", he competes in events of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), where he is cu ...

11–6 in the 2019 final. However, he was beaten 6–3 by

Martijn Kleermaker Martijn Kleermaker (born February 19, 1991) is a Dutch professional darts player, currently playing in Professional Darts Corporation events. PDC He announced that he intended to compete at Q School 2020, speaking to RTL7 saying tha ...

in the first round, as was top seed Joe Cullen in another upset, who lost to William O'Connor by the same scoreline. Peter Wright won the tournament for the first time with an 11–4 win over

James Wade James Martin Wade (born 6 April 1983) is an English professional darts player, currently playing in the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). He became the youngest player to win a major PDC title, when he won the 2007 World Matchplay at the ...

in the final.

José de Sousa José Augusto Oliveira de Sousa (born 12 February 1974) is a Portuguese professional darts player. He is based in Tarragona and represented Spain at the 2011 WDF World Cup, but played for the Portuguese team afterwards at the PDC. He won his ...

hit a nine-darter in his first-round match with

Jeffrey de Zwaan Jeffrey de Zwaan (born 26 March 1996) is a Dutch professional darts player who plays in events of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Career De Zwaan progressed through to the last 16 of the 2014 World Masters, where he lost 3–0 to Glen ...

, which he won 6–3.

Prize money

The 2020 European Championship has a total prize fund of £500,000, the same as its previous edition. The following is the breakdown of the fund:

Qualification

The 2020 tournament continued the new qualification system used in the two previous editions: the top 32 players from the European Tour Order of Merit qualified for the tournament. The Order of Merit is solely based on prize money won in the four European tour events during the season, reduced from the planned 13 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. As with the previous tournaments, players were drawn in a fixed bracket by their seeded order with the top qualifier playing the 32nd, the second playing the 31st and so on.

Glen Durrant Glen Durrant (born 24 November 1970), nicknamed "Duzza", is an English former professional darts player who played in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. He previously won the BDO World Darts Championship three times consecutively fr ...

(who would've been 23rd seed) had to withdraw from the tournament after testing positive for

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the week before, allowing William O'Connor to enter the tournament as the 32nd seed. The following players qualified for the tournament:

Draw

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:European Championship (darts)

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

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