Well, an impressive start from the American contingent gave us a brace of victories on the First Day at Lakeside!

Paula Murphy was first on stage against the dangerous Spaniard, Almudena Fajardo. A relative newcomer to darts, Fajardo has already reached the final of the World Masters, so it wasn’t going to be easy for our Paula.

Shooting predominantly 19’s today, Murphy’s first two darts of the day were triples. These were followed by a few more, and more importantly, a nice 66 finish to clinch a tidy 18-dart leg. A second 18 followed, and included a pair of 136’s and a 133. Fajardo struck back immediately to level the set at 2-2. Throwing second in the decider, Murphy was under pressure – or so we thought! Some remarkable consistency (five T19’s in her first four visits) and a no messing about on the finish sealed the set in 17 darts.

The Spanish girl upped her game, and kicked off the second with a speedy 15 on her way to winning the set 3-1. When the Floridian messed up her attempt at 56 in the first leg of the third, she was under the cosh. It was soon 1-1, though. A beautiful check from 82 to break serve next leg swung the advantage back to Paula, and she could even afford to take 6 darts at a double to win the match in the fourth!

So much better than her Lakeside debut last year, and it was a huge win against one of the best up-and-comers in women’s darts. She finished with an impressive average of 73.04. Paula now faces #8 seed Anca Zijlstra on Monday afternoon.

We move on to Jim Widmayer now. Jim was third game on this evening, and he was going head-to-head with the tricky Hungarian, Patrik Kovacs.

First leg went to Widmayer as he cleaned up after wiring a 130 out. The pair traded 17-dart legs before Kovacs forced a decider. Throwing first, a nicely-timed 180 helped Wid on his way to winning the set. The first four legs of Set Two went against the darts, meaning that we were faced with another set decider. Kovacs opened with a 140, and the American did the same. Despite this, the man from Ózd did enough to keep the advantage, and take us to a third set.

Widmayer had the throw again, but when he failed to convert 112, Kovacs took the W in 15. One leg later, it was all square as Jim broke back in 14. After 9 darts in the next, Widmayer had scored 243. He erased the remaining 258 in just six darts – 174, 84! One leg from victory, he needed just the one, and finished a classy final set in 16 darts.

So, two Americans have negotiated safely – and impressively – their first matches. Next up is Leonard Gates, who plays tomorrow (Sunday) night. ‘Soulger’ faces Kiwi Brian Corbett.

Elsewhere today, there were also good performances from Polish teenager Sebastian Bialecki, and Arjan Konterman (Netherlands), while Paula Murphy was far and away the best on the distaff side.

Full deatils from DartConnect

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