Anderson safely through opening test

Scotland’s Gary Anderson opened his bid for a third title with a 3-1 win over Kevin Burness at the William Hill World Darts Championship last night.

Anderson, the 2015 and 2016 world champion, hit seven maximum 180s on his way to a first round victory over a tricky opponent.

The Tom Kirby Memorial Irish Matchplay winner Burness saw off England’s Paul Nicholson 3-0 in the first round at Alexandra Palace on his debut at the event.

Michael Barnard survived six match darts against Jose De Sousa to move into the second round.

The 42-year-old Englishman battled through to beat his Portuguese opponent 3-2 in their first round meeting.

Also in the first round, Alan Tabern beat Raymond Smith 3-2 to set up a second round tie against world number one Michael Van Gerwen.

Jamie Lewis held off a fightback from Cody Harris to move into the third round.

The Welshman, who reached the semi-finals at Alexandra Palace 12 months ago, found an extra gear in the deciding set after Harris came from two sets down to level up the match.

Lewis breezed through the first set, winning it 3-1 despite a classy 118 checkout from New Zealand’s Harris, who had triumphed over Martin Schindler in round one on Thursday.

Back-to-back checkouts of 96 and 98 helped Lewis win the second set by the same margin but Harris won each of the next two sets in deciding legs to force a fifth and final set.

Lewis closed out the victory in style, hitting a 180 in three consecutive legs to take the deciding set 3-0. Danny Noppert from the Netherlands made it through to the second round with a comfortable win over Royden Lam from Hong Kong.

Lam never got into a rhythm and was beaten 3-0 with Noppert taking out 112 to wrap up victory.

Ted Evetts set up a second round meeting with former world champion Adrian Lewis with a 3-0 win over Simon Stevenson 3-0 and Chris Dobey beat Boris Koltsov 3-0.