The US pairing of Larry Butler and Darin Young got this evening’s session off to a great start with a comfortable 5-1 defeat of Italy.  The first two legs went with the darts, before a nice 13-darter (including a 180 from Larry) broke throw.  The Americans held the serve to move two ahead, and a beautiful 12-darter (100, 140, 140, 121 check from Darin) – with the opponents sitting on 40 – left them one leg from victory.  One leg more was all they needed…

As expected, Butler and Young now face Michael van Gerwen and Raymond van Barneveld, who beat the Czech Republic, also in six legs.  The only seeded team to fall today was Northern Ireland, who lost a tie-breaker against Germany.

There are two sessions tomorrow (Saturday), starting at 2pm (8am Eastern/7am Central) and 8pm (2pm Eastern/1pm Central).  The evening session promises to be something special, with the USA-Netherlands closing the day’s play.  The format now changes to singles play, with each singles game being best-of-seven.  Should the match be tied at 1-1, there will be a best-of-seven doubles as a decider.

The complete first round results were:

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