A trip to watch Bayern Munich versus Borussia Dortmund was undoubtably Stephen Bunting’s Deutschland highlight as he faced early elimination in the German Darts Grand Prix.
After a solid start to his 2024 European Tour campaign in Belgium where he reached the quarter-final, Bunting was looking to go a few steps further in Munich.
However, in his opening game, things didn’t pan out the way the Liverpudlian would have liked as Jermaine Wattimena claimed a 6-2 victory to halt any further progress.
With the Bullet facing the Machine Gun, it was a match where the reigning Masters Champion fired too many blanks on the outer ring, scuppering any hopes of claiming that elusive maiden Euro Tour title.
Leading from the offset, Wattimena never relinquished his advantage and ended up breaking the Bunting throw on three consecutive occasions to take his place in round three.
Despite recording just 9% on his doubles, Stephen still ended up with an average just over 91. But it was clear to see where the game was lost and something the world number 17 will be keen to rectify ahead of the upcoming Pro Tour events in Leicester.
Afterwards, Stephen had this to say. “Very disappointed with my performance. At this level, you can’t afford to give your opponent that many chances and expect to still win.
“I struggled to get going for some reason and was always chasing him. Then when I started to miss too many doubles, the task just became far more difficult.
“But I am experienced to know that it’s rare this will happen. So when it does, I just have to chalk it down to a bad day at the office and move on.”
