Beau Greaves narrowly missed out on a first win at the PDC World Championship after a 3-2 defeat by Daryl Gurney.
The 21-year-old from Doncaster, making her second appearance on the Alexandra Palace stage, hit a remarkable 10-dart leg to level the match against the 22nd seed.
But Northern Ireland World Cup winner Gurney pulled off the biggest checkout of the match, a 144, to break in the deciding set before wrapping up victory despite only winning 10 legs to Greaves’ 11.
“For me, she’s the best woman dart player on the planet,” Gurney said on Sky Sports.
“If there’s going to be a dart player that can win the World Championships or any majors, that’s the player you want to look to. Even from a man’s point of view, that woman has got some cajones.
“Obviously everybody says that she was the favourite coming into the game, but sometimes I showed my class, I showed my composure, and I got over the finish line.”
Ireland’s William O’Connor — who beat Greaves in her only previous appearance at Ally Pally — averaged 102.3 in a 3-0 win over Krzysztof Kciuk of Poland to earn a shot at three-time world champion Michael van Gerwen in round two.
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Nathan Aspinall, the 15th seed, produced a 170 checkout to finish off Filipino veteran Lourence Ilagan 3-1.
At one point Ilagan nearly jumped out of his skin when he was attacked by the Ally Pally wasp, prompting commentator Wayne Mardle to exclaim: “It’s not a tiger, Lourence!”
Ireland’s Keane Barry rounded off proceedings on day nine with a 3-0 win over Australian debutant Tim Pusey.
