Rob Cross set up a battle of former World Champions with Michael van Gerwen at the Gibraltar Darts Trophy as the year’s second European Tour event began on Friday. <\/p>\n
Cross was pushed all the way by emerging Hungarian thrower Patrik Kovacs at the Europa Sports Park before taking a 6-4 first round win in the \u00a3140,000 event. <\/p>\n
The 2018 World Champion had found himself 4-3 down before levelling with a 152 finish, capitalising on missed doubles from Kovacs to move 5-4 up and then firing in an 11-darter to secure a second round tie with Van Gerwen. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a lot more left in the tank and it will have to come out tomorrow,” said Cross. “Michael’s a great player but if I come out and I play, Michael will have to play well.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kim Huybrechts was the day’s most impressive performer as he began his bid to win a first European Tour title for six years with a 105 average in a 6-2 defeat of Russia’s Boris Koltsov. <\/p>\n
Callan Rydz also recorded a ton-plus average and finished six doubles from eight attempts as he defeated Host Nation Qualifier Justin Hewitt 6-1 to move through to a tie with Peter Wright. <\/p>\n
All four Gibraltarian representatives were eliminated on day one, as Dyson Parody went down 6-4 to Kenny Neyens, Adam Smith-Neale overcame Justin Broton 6-1 and Mervyn King whitewashed teenage prospect Craig Galliano. <\/p>\n
Recent World Cup of Darts winner John Henderson was brought back to earth with a bump as Croatia’s Boris Krcmar averaged almost 98 in his 6-2 win over the Scottish ace, creating a tasty round two tie with UK Open champion James Wade. <\/p>\n
Germany’s Florian Hempel produced an 11-darter to win the deciding leg of his tie with Stephen Bunting, and he now meets Gerwyn Price in Saturday’s second round as the 16 seeded players enter the action. <\/p>\n
Top seed Joe Cullen will play Joe Murnan, who survived four missed match darts from Martijn Kleermaker in the deciding leg of their first round tie. <\/p>\n
Simon Whitlock’s 6-1 win over Wayne Jones set him up for a meeting with Michael Smith, while Ryan Searle came from 5-2 down and survived four missed match darts from Martin Schindler to create a tie with Krzysztof Ratajski – the 2019 Gibraltar Darts Trophy winner. <\/p>\n
German number one Gabriel Clemens came from 2-0 down to defeat UK Open runner-up Luke Humphries 6-4, creating a meeting on Saturday with South African star Devon Petersen. <\/p>\n
Ritchie Edhouse plays Nathan Aspinall following his 6-4 defeat of Steve Beaton, while Adam Hunt’s whitewash of Geert Nentjes set up a meeting with Australia’s Damon Heta. <\/p>\n
Sweden’s Andreas Harrysson takes on Danny Noppert after seeing off Irish teenager Keane Barry 6-3, while Ted Evetts survived five missed match darts from Ryan Murray before taking out 108 in the deciding leg of their clash. <\/p>\n
The Gibraltar Darts Trophy is being streamed through PDCTV and bookmakers’ websites worldwide. <\/p>\n
2021 Gibraltar Darts Trophy Evening Session<\/strong> Saturday, September 25 Evening Session (1900 local time, 1800 BST)<\/strong> Rob Cross set up a battle of former World Champions with Michael van Gerwen at the Gibraltar Darts Trophy as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[109,124],"tags":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"de":3765,"en":3762},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3764,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762\/revisions\/3764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFriday, September 24
\nFirst Round
\nAfternoon Session<\/strong>
\nAndreas Harrysson 6-3 Keane Barry
\nJoe Murnan 6-5 Martijn Kleermaker
\nAdam Hunt 6-0 Geert Nentjes
\nAdam Smith-Neale 6-1 Justin Broton
\nTed Evetts 6-5 Ryan Murray
\nRob Cross 6-4 Patrik Kovacs
\nBoris Krcmar 6-2 John Henderson
\nMervyn King 6-0 Craig Galliano<\/p>\n
\nFlorian Hempel 6-5 Stephen Bunting
\nKenny Neyens 6-4 Dyson Parody
\nRyan Searle 6-5 Martin Schindler
\nSimon Whitlock 6-1 Wayne Jones
\nKim Huybrechts 6-2 Boris Koltsov
\nCallan Rydz 6-1 Justin Hewitt
\nRitchie Edhouse 6-4 Steve Beaton
\nGabriel Clemens 6-4 Luke Humphries <\/p>\n
\nSecond Round
\nAfternoon Session (1300 local time, 1200 BST)<\/strong>
\nDirk van Duijvenbode v Ted Evetts
\nBrendan Dolan v Mervyn King
\nDanny Noppert v Andreas Harrysson
\nDamon Heta v Adam Hunt
\nMensur Suljovic v Kim Huybrechts
\nMichael Smith v Simon Whitlock
\nJames Wade v Boris Krcmar
\nKrzysztof Ratajski v Ryan Searle<\/p>\n
\nJonny Clayton v Adam Smith-Neale
\nJose de Sousa v Kenny Neyens
\nDevon Petersen v Gabriel Clemens
\nPeter Wright v Callan Rydz
\nGerwyn Price v Florian Hempel
\nMichael van Gerwen v Rob Cross
\nJoe Cullen v Joe Murnan
\nNathan Aspinall v Ritchie Edhouse <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"