with BDO number 1 Stephen Bunting , who had come through a qualifier , facing PDC tour card holder Vernon Sheppard . The match was played on one of the outside boards and with the attention focused on the main stage Bunting quietly produced a fine display to claim a 5-0 victory .
Other big names in action in the opening round included Wayne Jones , who produced solid darts to emerge a 5-1 winner over an up and coming Nick Fullwell , and Colin Osborne who put some recent patchy form behind him to secure his spot in the first round proper with a 5-3 win over ‘ The Muffin Man ’ Steve Hine .
Vincent van der Voort has been out of form recently and a poor qualifying campaign had insured he too would face a preliminary round encounter . In fact he was pushed all the way by qualifier Andy Murray , with the big Dutchman eventually progressing thanks to a deciding leg in which Murray failed to impress .
Perhaps the biggest names to fall in the competitions earliest stage were those of Paddy Meaney and Antonio Alcinas , the youngsters from Ireland and Spain respectively have both impressed over recent years but both fell at the first hurdle in Bolton as Royden Lam defeated Meaney and Darren Johnson defeated Alcinas .
Gino Vos , Keegan Brown and Connie Finnan were all amongst the PDC regulars to find themselves drawn out in a prelim , but along with Bernd Roith and Tony West they made it safely through .
There was also some success for the qualifiers in the prelims , with Jake Pennington , Maik Langendorf , Gavin Baker , Scott Coleman and Dean Stewart all booking their place in Round 1 .
Round 1
Stephen Bunting
Photo : Mike Glover / UK Darts
The remaining qualifiers and the remainder of the players ranked 65-96 in the UK Open Qualifying Order of Merit entered the tournament for the first round . James Wade was making light work of what could have been a tough day for him and a 5-0 win over Matt Gallett ensured that one more win would see him safely through to Friday .
Wade ’ s opponent in the second round would be Wayne Jones after the Wolverhampton based thrower produced a 5-3 win over Royden Lam to progress . There were other big names that failed to make it past day one however , not least of whom was Justin Pipe who failed to produce his best as he lost 5-2 to Gareth Pass in his first match of the tournament .
There were also a couple of shocks on the main stage as first Roland Scholten and then Mensur Suljovic failed to progress , the duo losing to Conan Whitehead and Mark Lawrence respectively . James Hubbard produced better big stage form as he found something close to his best to claim a 5-2 win over John Scott and Stephen Bunting produced a second 5-0 win of the night to end the challenge of Darrell Thorpe .
Dean Winstanley was the next big name to fall as Dave Weston produced a fine display to edge him out in the deciding leg . Winstanley was joined in leaving on day one by Lancashire Captain Paul Whitworth , whose challenge was ended by fellow qualifier Andy Boulton .
John Scott
Photo : Mike Glover / UK Darts