LEWIS  GIVES  PAINTER  A  GLOSS  FINISH  &  PART HITS A 9 DARTER!

In one of the greatest games ever seen on the Winter Gardens stage, World Champion Adrian Lewis clawed is way back against Kevin Painter to move into the second round. Painter started the better of the two and maintained his early advantage so much so that in leg 16 World Champion Lewis put his darts away as ‘The Artist’ stepped up to the oche wanting double top for victory, however three missed darts on the wire gave Lewis a glimmer of hope and he then produced a 15 minute burst of amazing darts hitting back to back 11 darters. Painter went on to miss a couple more darts for the match and Lewis hitting 180′s for fun, a total of 12 in the match, finished in style on the bull for a remarkable 14-12.

The tournament kicked off in style with Steve Beaton producing without doubt his finest performance at Blackpool as he despatched of number 7 seed Terry Jenkins 10-3, ‘The Adonis’ never let Jenkins into the game and ‘The Bull’ seemed to be struggling with the heat on stage too. Beaton averaged over 100 as he breezed into round two.

Holland’s Vincent van der Voort held off a little comeback from Alan Tabern to win a very enteraining encounter 10-7 and book a second round meeting with World Champion Adrian Lewis.

There was more excitement in the final game of the evening between former World Champions John Part and Mark Webster. It was the Welshman who was the better out of the blocks as three time World Champion Part struggled to find his range. Then with Webster leading 7-3 the Canadian from nowhere produced the perfect 9 dart leg, his first in a televised event to rock the capacity Winter Gardens crowd and give hope of a fightback, however it wasn’t to be as Welshman Webster held his nerve to claim a hardfought 10-8 win.

The Skybet World Matchplay continues this evening at 19.00hrs live on SKY Sports.

Results Night 1;

Terry Jenkins 3-10 Steve Beaton

Vincent van der Voort 10-7 Alan Tabern

Adrian Lewis 14-12 Kevin Painter

Mark Webster 10-8 John Part (9 Darter From Part)