“When you get crowds that don’t unfortunately give you that fair game that you want, it’s hard for me to perform”: Luke Humphries laments hostile Krakow atmosphere

Luke Humphries squeezed past Krzysztof Ratajski 6-5 in the second round of the inaugural SUPERBET Poland Darts Open on Saturday night, but it was far from comfortable — and the world number two made clear afterwards that he felt the crowd had made an already difficult evening considerably harder.

Playing in front of a partisan Polish audience at the EXPO Kraków, Humphries was jeered and whistled throughout the match, with the atmosphere reaching a crescendo as Ratajski roared back from 5-2 down to level the match at 5-5 and set up a deciding leg. The noise in the arena, firmly behind the home nation’s most celebrated darts player, contributed to what Humphries described as anything but a straightforward night at the oche, despite eventually holding his nerve to progress.

Referee Kirk Bevins was required to intervene at points during the match to request the crowd settle while Humphries was throwing, but the atmosphere barely relented. After prevailing in the decider, Humphries did not shy away from addressing it.

“You probably would have seen a great game of darts there,” he said. “It’s just sometimes, when you get crowds that, unfortunately, don’t give you that kind of fair game that you want, it’s hard for me to perform. It probably put a lot of pressure on Krzysztof at the end there. He probably tried too hard.”

There was a measure of sympathy in that last observation for Ratajski — suggesting that the fevered expectation weighing on the Polish number one in front of his home crowd may have worked against him just as the hostility directed at Humphries worked against the visitor. But the former world champion was also withering about his own display. He averaged just 97.17 and landed half of his attempts at double — numbers well below the standard he holds himself to.

“My game at the moment, I am starting off like a train in every game I play, playing the best darts out of anybody,” he said. “Then, all of a sudden, I am playing the worst darts out of everybody. It’s a strange scenario for me. I am playing unbelievably, then playing crap.”

Pressed for an explanation, he could not offer one. “I don’t really know why. I am trying my best. I started off so well on the ProTour when I won it, but then it would drain out. I need to work out why that is happening. But that was really rubbish from myself tonight. Hopefully tomorrow I come back a different player and play like I have been.”

The bluntness is characteristic of Humphries at his most frustrated. He has spoken before about this exact pattern — explosive starts in matches followed by a dip that lets opponents back in — and the Ratajski match was another demonstration of a cycle he has not yet been able to break. The 5-2 lead should have been entirely comfortable. Ratajski being allowed back to 5-5, and the subsequent nerves of a decider in a cauldron of noise, turned what should have been a routine second-round win into a battle of endurance.

Humphries at least came through it, which is no small thing. Ratajski had beaten Mickey Mansell 6-3 in round one to arrive in the evening session with the energy of a home crowd behind him, and the three-leg comeback he produced from 5-2 down demonstrated exactly why he is a dangerous opponent on any surface. The crowd’s investment in his cause was total, and whether Humphries is right to characterise it as unfair or simply the nature of away fixtures in partisan atmospheres — something every touring professional encounters — will be a matter of perspective.

What is beyond debate is that he found a way through. Sunday brought a markedly different evening: a 6-1 demolition of Boris Krcmar in the last 16, and a quarter-final meeting with Stephen Bunting to come. The player he described hoping to be — back to his best, playing like he has been — appeared to show up for the afternoon session. The question of what triggers the version Krakow’s crowd saw on Saturday night, and what switches it off, remains one only Humphries can answer.