World Series of Darts: Jeroen Price was knocked out by Gabriel Clemens

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Jeroen Price won the World Championship in 2021

World No. 1 Jeroen Price was knocked out of the World Darts Championship after a heavy defeat by Gabriel Clemence in the quarter-finals.

Clemens beat Price 5-1 to make history as the first German player to reach the semi-finals.

Price sprinted to center wearing defenders off the ear in the fifth in an effort to drown out the crowd noise.

Michael van Gerwen, Michael Smith and Dimitri van den Bergh joined Clemence in the fourth round.

Although Price won the opening set with two overdraws, Clemens played some impressive darts to advance to the fourth round.

“I think I played a really good game and I’m really happy,” Clemens said. “I think it’s great for arrows in Germany.”

Price, 37, stunned the crowd by wearing earplugs covered in black ear defenders late in the contest, and the Welshman previously revealed he wore them while rehearsing in an effort to calm the boos and whistles from the crowd at Alexandra Palace.

The former rugby player took to Instagram after the match to describe the defeat as “very disappointing”, adding that he was not sure he would ever play in the event again.

Three-time winner Van Gerwen advanced with a 5-0 victory over England’s Chris Dobbie.

Van Gerwen has won four major titles this year and has only lost three matches in the match.

“I feel good, I feel comfortable,” the 33-year-old said after the match. “It was a phenomenon with the crowd behind me.”

Earlier, Smith and Van den Berg moved into the last four with a 5-3 win in the quarter-finals.

Smith, who reached the final last year, knocked out fellow Englishman Stephen Ponting, while Belgian Van den Berg knocked out Welshman Johnny Clayton.

This is the first time that Van den Berg, 28, has reached the world semi-finals.

Clayton, 48, led by one set three times in the quarter-finals, but Van den Berg came back again and again.

The Belgian, who won the World Matchplay in 2020, eventually took the seventh set lead and closed out the match in the eighth.

“I feel like I’m one step closer to making my dreams come true,” Van den Bergh – the first Belgian to reach a world semi-final – said after the match.

It was a real battle, but I managed to get through it.”

Smith, who won the Grand Slam of Darts in November, edged out a 4-1 lead in the second quarter-final.

Ponting battled back to one but Smith, 32, won the eighth set to reach the semi-finals for the third time in his career.

“I was able to dig deep when I needed to and was able to fall over the line and still get the win,” he said.

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