Arbroath firefighter Alan Soutar impressed once again as Daryl Gurney became the first seeded player to bow out of the tournament, going down 3-0 on the Ally Pally stage.
Soutar won the deciding leg of each set, winning it in style with a 160 checkout to again progress past the Christmas break having enjoyed a run to the last 16 of last year’s event.
The popular Scot, who will work for the fire service over the Christmas break, could now face UK Open champion Danny Noppert in round three.
“I’m absolutely buzzing, Daryl is a tough player but he missed loads of chances and let me in,” Soutar reflected.
“He’s a seed for a reason, he’s 24th in the world, he’s a lot better player than me but today is my day.
“I feel like I’m playing the darts of my life recently and I’m getting used to playing on the big stage now.”
Simon Whitlock kicked off his 20th World Championship campaign by surviving a huge scare from Christian Perez.
Former World Championship runner-up Whitlock eventually ran out a 3-2 winner after Perez spurned crucial doubles in the deciding set.
With the final set tied at 1-1, Perez missed nine darts at double as Whitlock won a 30-dart leg before following it up with a 13-dart break of throw to get over the winning line and set up a second round meeting with Jose de Sousa.
“That was a real battle, Christian played really well and it could’ve gone either way,” Whitlock conceded.
“I think I stayed calm, used my experience and just got lucky really. I came through it okay but I will have to be much better against Jose, he’s an amazing player and I know it’s going to be a really tough game.”
Sunday will see another double session take place, with two-time World Champion Adrian Lewis’ meeting with Damon Heta headlining the afternoon action.
Two-time World Championship semi-finalist Nathan Aspinall will begin his campaign against Boris Krcmar in the evening session.
The Cazoo World Darts Championship is being broadcast live on Sky Sports in the UK & Ireland, through the PDC’s worldwide broadcast partners including DAZN and Viaplay, and on PDCTV (excluding UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria & Switzerland based subscribers).
Saturday December 17
Afternoon Session (1100 GMT)
3x First Round, 1x Second Round
Martin Lukeman 3-0 Nobuhiro Yamamoto (3-0, 3-1, 3-2) (R1)
Simon Whitlock 3-2 Christian Perez (3-0, 2-3, 3-2, 0-3, 3-1) (R1)
Adam Gawlas 3-2 Richie Burnett (3-0, 0-3, 1-3, 3-1, 3-1) (R1)
Alan Soutar 3-0 Daryl Gurney (3-2, 3-2, 3-2) (R2)
Evening Session (2000 GMT)
3x First Round, 1x Second Round
Ryan Meikle 3-2 Lisa Ashton (3-1, 3-2, 2-3, 2-3, 3-0) (R1)
Cameron Menzies 3-1 Diogo Portela (3-1, 1-3, 3-1, 3-1) (R1)
Josh Rock 3-1 Jose Justicia (3-1, 1-3, 3-1, 3-0) (R1)
Dimitri Van den Bergh 3-0 Lourence Ilagan (3-0, 3-2, 3-0) (R2)
Sunday December 18
Afternoon Session (1100 GMT)
3x First Round, 1x Second Round
Madars Razma v Prakash Jiwa (R1)
Karel Sedlacek v Raymond Smith (R1)
Luke Woodhouse v Vladyslav Omelchenko (R1)
Damon Heta v Adrian Lewis (R2)
Evening Session (2000 GMT)
3x First Round, 1x Second Round
Mike De Decker v Jeff Smith (R1)
Scott Williams v Ryan Joyce (R1)
Matt Campbell v Danny Baggish (R1)
Nathan Aspinall v Boris Krcmar (R2)
—-ENDS—–
Images: Taylor Lanning / PDC
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