Raymond van Barneveld marked his return to the William Hill World Darts Championship with a classy 3-0 victory Lourence Ilagan at Alexandra Palace on Monday, setting up a mouth-watering second round clash with Rob Cross.<\/p>\n
Night six also saw world number four James Wade progress to round three with a 3-1 win over Maik Kuivenhoven, while debutant Rusty-Jake Rodriguez and Luke Woodhouse enjoyed first round wins.<\/p>\n
The return of five-time World Champion Van Barneveld headlined the evening\u2019s action as he entered the stage where he retired two years ago.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman began the match by breaking the Ilagan throw, punishing the Filipino ace for three missed doubles before going on to wrap up the set 3-1.<\/p>\n
The second set was even more one-sided with the 54-year-old not dropping a leg, doubling his advantage in sets with a 121 checkout.<\/p>\n
Another comfortable set followed as Van Barneveld wrapped up the 3-0 win with an average of 97 to set up an encounter with another former World Champion in Cross.<\/p>\n
\u201cRob is an amazing darts player and an amazing guy too, I\u2019m really looking forward to this match,\u201d said the Dutchman after his win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can play much better but I won and that’s the main thing. I can\u2019t wait to play Rob Cross, it will be special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Barneveld, who also featured in the Grand Slam of Darts in November after making his return from retirement at Q School earlier in the year also spoke of his delight to be back in London.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a privilege to be back, I missed it. At the start of the year I had one goal to be back here,” Van Barneveld continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy last game here two years ago was poor, it wasn\u2019t a very good farewell and the crowd deserved better.<\/p>\n
Fourth seed Wade will also be back after Christmas, courtesy of a comfortable but scrappy 3-1 win over Kuivenhoven.<\/p>\n
Wade raced in to a 2-0 lead dropping just two legs before the Dutchman pulled a set back.<\/p>\n
Wade then regained control in the fourth set, breaking the throw in the opening leg before going on to seal the victory.<\/p>\n
The multiple TV title winner didn\u2019t produce his most prolific of performances, averaging just 84 with a 105 checkout the only highlight but that was more than enough to see him progress to round three.<\/p>\n
Woodhouse and James Wilson opened up night six at Alexandra Palace with Woodhouse running out a 3-1 winner.<\/p>\n
Wilson started the quicker of the pair as he took the opening set 3-2 to set out an early marker.<\/p>\n
Woodhouse immediately found a reaction to going behind by winning the second set 3-1 including a 100 checkout.<\/p>\n
The following two sets also went the way of the Englishman who finished with an average of 91.52, hitting five maximums on his was to the win and a second round tie with Damon Heta.<\/p>\n
20-year-old debutant Rodriguez joined his brother Rowby-John in the second round after running out a convincing 3-1 winner over Ben Robb.
\nRodriguez opened the match with a 180 to settle any nerves and went on to claim the opening set 3-2.<\/p>\n
Robb, who had been beaten 3-0 by Ron Meulenkamp in his only previous appearance at the World Championship in 2019, then claimed his first ever set on Alexandra Palace stage to level the match at 1-1.<\/p>\n
However, Rodriguez rallied and went on to win six of the next seven legs and move safely in to round two where he will face Chris Dobey.<\/p>\n
\u201cChris and I are good friends and we know each other well but when we play we won\u2019t be friends on the stage. I\u2019m looking forward to that match,\u201d said the Austrian.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very happy with how I played, I feel blessed to play in front of this crowd for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying in the Grand Slam and Players Championship Finals this year gave me stage experience and confidence to perform like I did tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brother is always giving me advice, he has more experience than me so it\u2019s good to have him around.\u201d<\/p>\n
The William Hill World Darts Championship continues on Tuesday with two sessions of play as the first round reaches its conclusion.<\/p>\n
Former finalist Michael Smith and world number five Dimitri van den Bergh take to the stage in the evening after last year’s semi-finalist Dave Chisnall headlines the afternoon session.<\/p>\n
2021\/22 William Hill World Darts Championship Tuesday December 21 Evening Session (1900 GMT) Raymond van Barneveld marked his return to the William Hill World Darts Championship with a classy 3-0 victory Lourence Ilagan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124],"tags":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"de":4204,"en":4201},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4201"}],"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=4201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4203,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4201\/revisions\/4203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSchedule of Play
\nMonday December 20 (1900 GMT)
\n3x First Round, 1x Second Round<\/strong>
\n(R1) Luke Woodhouse 3-1 James Wilson (2-3, 3-1, 3-2, 3-1)
\n(R1) Rusty-Jake Rodriguez 3-1 Ben Robb (3-2, 2-3, 3-0, 3-1)
\n(R1) Raymond van Barneveld 3-0 Lourence Ilagan (3-1, 3-0, 3-1)
\n(R2) James Wade 3-1 Maik Kuivenhoven (3-1, 3-1, 0-3, 3-1)<\/p>\n
\nAfternoon Session (1230 GMT)
\n2x First Round, 2x Second Round<\/strong>
\n(R1) Lewy Williams v Toyokazu Shibata
\n(R1) Jason Lowe v Daniel Larsson
\n(R2) Mervyn King v Ryan Joyce
\n(R2) Dave Chisnall v Mike De Decker <\/p>\n
\n4x Second Round<\/strong>
\n(R2) Vincent van der Voort v Adam Hunt
\n(R2) Michael Smith v Ron Meulenkamp
\n(R2) Dimitri Van den Bergh v Florian Hempel
\n(R2) Devon Petersen v Raymond Smith <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"