Raymond van Barneveld (80/1 to win World Championship) feels he has set the record straight after marking his return to the PDC World Championship with an impressive 3-0 victory over Lourence Ilagan in the first round on Monday.
Monday 20th December results:
Luke Woodhouse 3-1 James Wilson (R1)
Rusty-Jake Rodriguez 3-1 Ben Robb (R1)
Raymond van Barneveld 3-0 Lourence Ilagan (R1)
James Wade 3-1 Maik Kuivenhoven (R2)
Tuesday 21st December order of play:
Afternoon session:
Lewy Williams v Toyokazu Shibata (R1 – 12:30)
Jason Lowe v Daniel Larsson (R1 – 13:30)
Mervyn King v Ryan Joyce (R2 – 14:30)
Dave Chisnall v Mike De Decker (R2 – 15:30)
Evening session:
Vincent van der Voort v Adam Hunt (R2 – 19:10)
Michael Smith v Ron Meulenkamp (R2 – 20:00)
Dimitri Van den Bergh v Florian Hempel (R2 – 21:00)
Devon Petersen v Raymond Smith (R2 – 22:00)
The five-time world champion had retired from the sport following his shock defeat on his last appearance at Ally Pally to Darin Young two years ago, but he came out of retirement last January with the goal of righting those wrongs.
‘Barney’ was certainly able to do that, delivering a convincing performance to see off Philippine star Ilagan and set up a mouth-watering second-round clash with 2018 world champion Rob Cross on Thursday (Cross 8/15, Van Barneveld 6/4 Match Betting).
“It’s a privilege to be back. I missed it. I had one goal – to be back here. And here it is,” the Dutchman told Sky Sports after his first-round victory.
“My last game [against Darin Young] was poor, and I went home thinking, ‘This is not a very good farewell. The crowd deserves better’. I never thought I was getting back, because I was done with darts. And then circumstances, with Covid got me back. And now this.”
Monday also saw Luke Woodhouse and Rusty-Jake Rodriguez claim first-round victories over James Wilson and Ben Robb respectively, while in the night’s second-round contest fourth seed James Wade was not at his best but was still able to overcome Maik Kuivenhoven 3-1.
The final two first round matches will be contested on Tuesday, with Lewy Williams facing Toyokazu Shibata (Williams 1/4, Shibata 3/1 – Match Betting) and Jason Lowe taking on Daniel Larsson (Lowe 1/3, Larsson 9/4 – Match Betting) before our attention fully turns to the second round, with six matches from the last 64 scheduled.
Last year’s semi-finalist Dave Chisnall will headline the afternoon session when he takes on Mike De Decker (Chisnall 2/7, De Decker 13/5 – Match Betting), while in the evening 2019 runner up Michael Smith will face Ron Meulenkamp (Smith 2/9, Meulenkamp 16/5 – Match Betting), while fifth seed Dimitri Van den Bergh will be up against Florian Hempel (Van den Bergh 1/4, Hempel 3/1 – Match Betting).
The final day of play pre-Christmas comes up on Thursday, when 1996 world champion Steve Beaten squares off with Kim Huybrechts, having ousted Fallon Sherrock in round one.
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