Also, Dom Taylor, for fuck's sake.
Wattimena/Gruellich - Give some props to Dominik here, he did enough to keep things close against a clearly not on top form Jermaine, didn't work out in the end, as Wattimena just powered away in sets four and five, but a good sign for potential stage games going forwards.
Chisnall/Sherrock - Lots of missed doubles here. 3/23 is not a good look, but if you will only ever play in events where you are only likely to ever have to hit a double under pressure against one possible opponent, that's kind of on you for not pushing yourself. Play the fucking Challenge Tour, it's not difficult.
van Gerwen/Tatsunami - Was surprisingly tight. Don't think the qualifier did anything special, just took advantage of MvG pretty much not being on his game, getting what he could, but still not having enough to clean the game out. I guess Michael just puts this in the "just glad to be through round one" locker.
Ratajski/Toylo - A bit of a better game, but as I thought, Krzysztof is exactly the sort of player who will not be disrupted by a slower player, and he allowed pretty much nothing.
Doets/Dennant - Fairly solid showing from Matthew. Got the first, and was not far away from the remaining sets. Kevin was playing better, but with a bit better "timing" (god I hate that term) then maybe this match plays out differently. Certainly seemed closer than the scoreline and statistics suggested.
Meikle/Salate - No trouble here for Ryan. Jesus I guess was just a bit overwhelmed, it got a bit more interesting in the last set but the game was done by then.
Mansell/Gates - Now a lot of people here are giving this the Mansell/Long award. That might be a tad harsh, the first two sets weren't too bad, but then Mickey just turned off. Somehow got an eleven visit break and got things back to 2-2 on the back of that, but then the last set just reverted to type. This one more or less kept me at break even today, and for round one, thought this sort of game at the worlds was past Mansell but I guess not.
Rock/Hayter - Seems like Josh was just going through the motions here. Not really at full blast, Gemma played pretty decently let's not confuse matters, but I think if Rock wanted to 3-0 this one he could have done, but hey, a win is a win.
O'Connor/Kciuk - One of the performances of the tournament so far. It probably doesn't look quite as good in my database as it does in other media, mainly due to the only last dart kill Willie had being the 167 out, but it's good. Kciuk didn't play badly at all - he was just hugely outclassed on the night.
Gurney/Greaves - This was a real fun one to watch. On a lot of other days, Beau takes this, just a case of the occasional missed double at key times, and Daryl hitting the key checkouts at key times. It's an L for Greaves but a clear marker, as if any were needed, that she can mix it with the upper ends of the PDC ladder.
Aspinall/Ilagan - Fuck knows what was going on with this one. Seems like a perfect storm of Lourence looking maybe the best we've ever seen him on a PDC stage, and Nathan not being quite on his game. He got it done, but having piled on Aspinall at very short odds, this was a lot closer than it really needed to be.
Barry/Pusey - Alright from both. Keane coming back as he did in the first set I think might have taken the sting out of Tim a touch, if Pusey bags the first I think this one could have played out a lot differently, but while the Aussie didn't play bad at all, I think he was just consistently that half a visit or more behind, and it showed in the result, particularly after set one.
Into the sorting wheat from the chaff stage for real now. Lot of players will have nicked their way through one, but getting through the second is going to properly sort things out. I'll try and get daily thoughts updates out, as I'm at football tomorrow I'm not sure if I do it for the Saturday matches, or at least at decent timings, but we'll see.
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