Bradford darts ace Joe Cullen is not looking at his best of late, and he slumped to a humbling defeat in Germany over the weekend.

He was taking part on the fourth event of this years PDC European Tour, the European Darts Grand Prix in Sindelfingen.

Cullen’s opening game came at the first round stage against the unheralded Swede Johan Engstrom.

But he had a nightmare outing on the big stage, losing 6-1 and almost getting whitewashed, only to win the penultimate leg with an impressive 112 checkout.

That was the only time in the match the Wyke man even had the chance to throw for a double, as he was comprehensively outplayed by Engstrom.

Sixteenth seed Cullen only averaged a miserable 86, compared to 99 from his Swedish opponent, while he failed to land a single 180 all match.

Engstrom was dumped out of the tournament at the next stage by Michael van Gerwen, who made it to the semi-finals.

The Dutch superstar was knocked out in a dramatic 7-6 defeat to Ross Smith, meaning the latter squeezed into the final to face veteran Scot Gary Anderson.

And the showpiece went the way of Anderson, who beat Smith 8-6 to claim his first European Tour title since 2014.

As for Cullen, he will have the chance to bounce back quickly from his Sindelfingen shocker, as he takes part in the fifth European Tour event of the season this coming weekend.

That is the Austrian Darts Open, which begins in Graz on Friday.