Corey Cadby is all smiles

Corey Cadby enjoys dream European Tour debut on day one of Czech Darts Open

By Sporting Life

Darts

Sat June 29, 2019 · 5y ago

The ninth European Tour event of 2019, and the PDC's first ever tournament staged in the Czech Republic, saw 32 players in action on the opening day at the PVA Expo.

Rising Australian star Cadby, who was starring in a European Tour event for the first time since returning to the PDC ProTour earlier this year, got off to a perfect start on the big stage with a 6-0 demolition of Wessel Nijman.

"I've been the underdog for a while but I'm thankful to be playing here in front of this amazing crowd," said Cadby, who will face Michael Smith in Saturday's second round.

"I can't wait to get back out here tomorrow against Michael. I've beaten him on the two occasions we've met previously and I'm ready for a third."

Friday's first round of the £140,000 tournament saw 32 qualifiers competing, 11 of whom harboured hopes of forcing their way into qualifying positions for the Betfred World Matchplay ahead of Sunday's qualification cut-off.

Keegan Brown took a huge step towards a third Winter Gardens appearance with a 6-0 whitewash of Czech Qualifier Ondrej Plsek; a result which ended Kyle Anderson's hopes of making it to Blackpool.

World Cup finalist William O'Connor must reach the quarter-finals if he is to snatch a World Matchplay place, and he too got off to the best possible start with a 6-0 success over another Host Nation Qualifier Vaclav Shieferdecker.

Dutchman Ron Meulenkamp is tasked with reaching the semi-finals and he also kept his hopes alive with a 6-2 success over Czech debutant Jan Hlavacek.

Jamie Hughes, Ted Evetts and Justin Pipe are all required to land the £25,000 top prize if they are to qualify for the biggest even of the summer and the trio recorded victories over Devon Petersen, Krzysztof Ratajski and Madars Razma respectively.

World Cup star Karel Sedlacek was the sole Czech representative to make it through to round two with a gripping 6-5 success over Brendan Dolan, ending the Northern Irishman's World Matchplay hopes in the process.

Robert Thornton, Rowby-John Rodriguez and Razma were the other three players to see their feint Blackpool hopes extinguished with defeats at the hands of Stephen Bunting, Andrew Gilding and Pipe respectively.

A winner of two ProTour titles in his debut PDC campaign, Glen Durrant is already assured of his World Matchplay debut and he produced an outstanding 110.12 average in his 6-1 win over Daniel Larsson to set up a meeting with Gerwyn Price.

Elsewhere, Danish Darts Open finalist Chris Dobey got his campaign off to a 6-2 winning start over Poland's Sebastian Steyer, while Dutch pair Jermaine Wattimena and Danny Noppert were victorious over Kevin Garcia and Stefan Bellmont.

Saturday's second day of the Czech Darts Open will be broadcast on video.pdc.tv, and through a series of bookmakers' websites.