Day 1 winners thoughts

Just going to blast through these, thank fuck that Hopp missed those match darts

Hughes - Played OK. Pulled out the best leg when it was most needed. Scraped over the line but can't really complain, was up against a tough opponent playing well.

West - Lucky. Ratajski missed a bunch of critical doubles, particularly in the mid game, Steve did enough but will need to up his game.

White - Meh. King didn't really show up, White didn't need to get out of second gear, three six-visit breaks is a nice bonus to be able to get.

de Sousa - Nine. Nice. Was a touch worrying when de Zwaan got back into the game a little bit, but thankfully Jose was 5-1 up at the time. Generally solid, but could do with cutting out the couple of bad legs he had.

Wade - Fortunate. Performance was sound, but as I kind of thought in the preview, Lennon had his shots to claim it and missed them.

Petersen - Competent. Hamilton never really troubled him. Can't really fault the performance but it certainly wasn't peak Devon.

Smith - Sluggish. Took forever to start, hit his game just about enough to get back on throw late in the game then kind of fell over the line as Ross's scoring against the throw fell apart. Maybe a good sign that Michael got through the first round, should come into it more in a longer match.

van Duijvenbode - Alright. For a 6-0 win it wasn't quite as amazing as it could have been, just the three par legs and the three in six visits. Good timing I guess, Noppie was on or around a double in every leg but only actually got a couple of pokes at them.

Aspinall - Must try harder. Lots and lots of sloppy darts and missed darts at doubles, fortunate that Kuivenhoven was equally off their game, could have been 4-1 at the break to Maik very easily.

O'Connor - Good. Cullen was really disappointing, the #1 seed seemed to get to him and Willie getting the comedy leg going into the break seemed to crush him. Plenty of things Willie could work on, but at least he has the opportunity.

Kleermaker - Composed. First leg was a bit lol but was able to pin quite a few big outs to open up a good lead against Cross then take advantage of misses in what turned out to be the final leg.

Clayton - Phew. Should really have been 5-0 and away after the break, needed to rely on mistakes from Hopp, was scoring real well in the legs Hopp won to be fair.

van Gerwen - Clinical. Never gave Labanauskas a sniff outside the one leg he hit a twelve in. Ominous signs that Michael could have shaken off the flaky form of late.

Price - Up there. Probably only the third leg that you can really criticise, which he won anyway and probably could have used another six darts to do so. No real signs of weakness beyond there and should still be considered the favourite if he can get past the next round.

Wright - Great. Apart from one leg never gave Clemens a chance. Was right there in the holds Gabriel was able to hit down, but this made all three of the big guns show up on day 1.

Suljovic - Did enough. Didn't really need to do that much against Gurney playing like that, but was hitting enough doubles and scoring just well enough.

So tomorrow we have, in some order, O'Connor/Hughes, Aspinall/Wade, Petersen/Kleermaker, van Gerwen/White, Price/Wright, Suljovic/West, de Sousa/Clayton and Smith/van Duijvenbode. There's one obvious stand out game, but I don't think there's anything that's going to be a particular stinker, West/Suljovic looks the least interesting on paper but if West can get by Ratajski, then he can certainly trouble Mensur. Aspinall/Wade (again lol) probably the second pick, Clayton/de Sousa should be fine if Jonny can finish things a bit better, van Gerwen/White will be alright if Ian can roll things back a year or so, Smith/van Duijvenbode ought to be excellent, O'Connor/Hughes is one where anything can happen, and Petersen/Kleermaker has potential if Martijn can perform like he did today, he's had enough good performances of late that it can happen.

Bets in the morning.