TheOche.com

The first day’s play at Blackpool is over and with it came victories for Alex Roy, John Part, and Dennis Priestley.

The first match of the day was Alex roy versus Mark dudbridge, with Alex coming out the victor by 10 legs to Mark’s 6. The 31 year old Roy followed up his last 16 finish at the Budweiser UK Open last month with this victory over Dudbridge. On the PlanetDarts.tv site, Roy was quoted “This meant a lot to me. You don’t want to be the first player out of the tournament! I expected a lot from Mark, but he didn’t seem to be at the races.” Now, whether he’s at the races or not, he is out of it anyway.

The next match of the day was John Part, winner of the 2006 Las Vegas Desert Classic, against Wes Newton. Leading from the start of the match, Part domainated his opponent. Newton missed a lot of his doubles attempts, hitting just 2 from 14 attempts in the opening ten legs, and Part was able to exploit Newton’s mistakes. “I was solid,” Part said. “It wasn’t a high average but I was always in front and I did what I had to. I ran out ahead on the scoreline, but I didn’t feel great and had to grind out a few legs. I took some key shots out when I needed to.”

The final match of the evening saw Dennis Priestly see off alan Tabern in perhaps the most dramatic match of the evening. The match went back and forth with Priestly keeping the lead, but with Tabern pulling to within one or two legs at several points during the match. Dennis won the overall battle though with 10 legs to Tabern’s 7. A hard fought game by both players, but Priestly would ultimately advance to the next round.