Looking to get some valuable points on the board, there was disappointment for the USA as Joe Chaney and Jerry Van Loan suffered an early exit against Northern Ireland’s Gary Elliott and Paul McDonald.  After losing the first leg, Chaney and Van Loan bounced back in style with legs of 15 and 13 darts, which included a 180 in each from the Tennessean.  Elliott and McDonald took the next two to take the initiative.  Throwing second, Joe and Jerry raced down to 82 after just 9 darts, a seventh-leg tie-breaker looked certain, but seven darts failed to find the winning double, and the game was over.

In the top half of the draw, Jim Widmayer and Kevin Luke were making a definite impression.  Wins over Serbia, Turkey, and Finland propelled the pair into the Top 16, and a tricky clash with Australians Adam Rowe and Justin Thompson.  It wasn’t that tricky though, and they were in the quarter-final against England’s Scott Mitchell and Daniel Day.

After a slow start, Widmayer and Luke kept the pressure on and forced a tie-breaker.  The two teams were neck-and-neck all the way down, but the advantage of the throw proved crucial as former World Champ Mitchell checked out from 88 with Jim waiting for a shot at 70.

The Women’s team event was next, and the US quartet were quick off the mark with couple of fine wins against Latvia and Finland, with Robin Curry and Marlise Kiel going undefeated in both matches, and Stacey unbeaten against Latvia

These were followed by a superb win against the always dangerous Netherlands squad.  It looked like it was going to be an uphill battle after a slow start, with Cali West being the only winner in the first four legs.  Ironically, Cali was the only American to lose a leg in the next four!  From this point we always held the upper hand, and although it remained close at 7-7, Robin and Cali cleaned up the last two legs for the W.

The fourth match of the round-robin pitched us against Estonia, and a 9-4 win kept us at the top of the group, and this time it was West who was unbeaten.  The last group match was against closest challengers, the Republic of Ireland, and racing into a 5-0 lead, the result was never seriously in doubt, and a comfortable 9-4 victory meant that the US topped the group with five wins out of five.  The event continues tomorrow with the knockout rounds.

Here are the line-ups for the finals of the events played today.

Men’s Pairs
Scott Mitchell / Daniel  Day (Eng) vs David Cameron / Jeff Smith (CAN)
Girls’ Pairs
Sophie McKinlay / Chloe O’Brien (SCO) vs Beau Greaves / Shannon Reeves (ENG)
Boys’ Singles
Keelan Kay (ENG) vs Mehrdad Seyfi (IRN)

Tomorrow (Friday) features the Men’s and Women’s Team event knockout rounds (playing down to each final), the Youth Mixed Pairs, and all Pairs finals.

For more information, including teams, event schedules, and all draws, please go check out the World Darts Federation’s World Cup website.

As a bonus, you can follow events live thanks to our good friends at DartConnect.

Daily news and updates will be published here…

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