On an enthralling opening day at Lakeside, there were some fantastic darts, a major shock, and disappointment for American hopes…

After top-seeded Mark McGeeney kicked off the tournament with a tidy 3-1 defeat of Derk Telnekes, New York’s Jim Widmayer took to the stage. It really didn’t take long for Jimmy to edge ahead of Nigel Heydon. In an evenly matched first set, the first four legs went with the throw. The Englishman had the darts, but Widmayer’s powerful scoring gave him the first shot at an out. He failed to convert the required 72, but made no mistake with his next shot at 6.

Three legs later it was 2-0 in sets. A nice trio of 14, 15, and 16 darts left Jim firmly in control. Heydon bounced back to close the gap with a three leg third set. Having the darts in the fourth set, Jim was still in a strong position, but his opponent immediately broke serve with a fine check from 120. A miss from 64 allowed Heydon to extend his lead., and an 18-darter made it 2-2 in sets.

Heydon was now a man on a mission, and he needed just three legs to send Jim packing.

Elsewhere, Wesley Harms got the better of Tony O’Shea, and the experienced Paul Hogan saw off the efforts of an out-of-sorts Wes Newton. The biggest story of the day, however, was the shock defeat of four-time women’s World Champ Lisa Ashton. Lisa never hit any kind of form, and slumped to a 2-0 loss against Japanese qualifier Mikuru Suzuki.

Here are the complete first round draws.

Men
(1) Mark McGeeney bt Derk Telnekes
Conan Whitehead bt (16) Martin Phillips
(8) Richard Veenstra vs Nigel Heydon
(9) Scott Waites vs Jeffrey van Egdom
(5) Michael Unterbuchner vs Justin Thompson
(12) Wayne Warren vs Mark Layton
(4) Wesley Harms bt Tony O’Shea
(13) Willem Mandigers vs Paul Hogan
(3) Jim Williams vs Roger Janssen/Wouter Vaes
(14) Daniel Day vs Dean Reynolds
(6) Scott Mitchell vs Oliver Ferenc/Ryan Hogarth
(11) Dave Parletti vs Brian Lokken/Krzysztof Kciuk
(7) Gary Robson vs David Cameron/Andy Hamilton
(10) Chris Landman vs Kyle McKinstry
(2) Glen Durrant vs Mark McGrath/Adam Smith-Neale
(15) Ross Montgomery vs Scott Baker

Women
(1) Lorraine Winstanley vs Casey Gallagher
(8) Trina Gulliver MBE vs Karolina Podgorska
(4) Anastasia Dobromyslova vs Laura Turner
(5) Aileen de Graaf vs Paula Jacklin
(3) Deta Hedman vs Maria O’Brien
(6) Fallon Sherrock vs Corrine Hammond
Mikuru Suzuki bt (2) Lisa Ashton
(7) Sharon Prins bt Roz Bulmer

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