Gerwyn Price has booked his place in the World Matchplay quarter-finals with an 11-8 victory over Dave Chisnall.
The Welshman has never progressed past the last eight stage in Blackpool, but he has remained on course to improve on his best showing with a comeback win on Wednesday night.
Despite beginning the contest with a 161 checkout, Price found himself 6-4 down, but the 2021 world champion dominated the second half of the match, helped by a 164 checkout.
Although Chisnall extended the encounter into a 19th leg with a 111 checkout, Price finally got over the line with his fourth match dart in that leg.
The shock of the night came in the concluding fixture as Dirk van Duijvenbode took advantage of a fast start to see off the challenge of Michael Smith.
The Dutchman took the opening four legs before being pegged back to 8-5, and Smith went agonisingly close to a nine-dart leg in the 15th leg, pulling his final dart inside the double 12.
EIGHT PERFECT DARTS 😩
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) July 20, 2022
Smith narrowly misses D12 for a perfect leg but a 10-darter keeps him in this tussle with Van Duijvenbode!
Much better from Bully Boy!#WMDarts | R2
📺 https://t.co/eJJXK4DqqY pic.twitter.com/9kDeMhKraW
To his credit, Van Duijvenbode retained his composure to take move 10-7 ahead with an 86 checkout before sealing his success in the following leg.
The highest quality match was between Jose de Sousa and Rob Cross, the Portuguese progressing by an 11-8 scoreline as both players averaged in excess of 103.
While De Sousa was never behind, Cross took out two timely 106 checkouts to remain competitive, but De Sousa hit two maximums in the 19th leg to set up his chance for victory, which he took to set up a showdown with Price.
In the first game of the night, Danny Noppert put on one of his best televised performances of his career to see off Daryl Gurney.
The UK Open champion hit five 180s, posted a 61.11% success-rate on his doubles and averaged 102.36 in defeating the Northern Irishman by an 11-4 scoreline.
Darren Plant
