Van Barneveld announced his retirement on Thursday evening
Raymond Van Barneveld has reversed his decision to retire and says he wants to end his career after one final World Championship.
The five-time world champion was originally due to retire at the end of the year but a crushing 7-1 to Michael van Gerwen on Thursday night confirmed his relegation from the Premier League and Van Barneveld decided not to wait any longer before bowing out from the game.
“For me I’ve made a decision I am done now. I don’t want the pain any more. It’s pain every single week for the last three or four years. I’m OK with this decision. I’m relieved. I’m done,” said the Dutchman after the defeat.
On Friday however, he reversed his decision, admitting that he had spoken with “raw emotion”.
“I realise that I should not speak out like that when I feel such raw emotion,” said Van Barneveld on Friday.
“I want to end my career at Alexandra Palace during one final World Championship.”
After Thursday’s defeat, Van Barneveld said he felt ‘ashamed’ of his uncharacteristically poor performance.
“Yesterday I don’t know where it came from, I played really bad, I lost 7-1 so today I knew I was relegated and I felt ashamed,” he told Sky Sports.
“Five-time world champion and I was thinking ‘Do I deserve this? I don’t think so’ but it is reality. I’m not good enough.
“I don’t have the energy to start from scratch again,” he added.
“I can say to myself ‘OK Ray, take some time off’, but there is no time because at the end of the year is the world championship. It is good to see everyone loves you but they don’t have one single clue what I’m going through.”
