Richard Veenstra held off a spirited effort from Kyle McKinstry to progress to round two at the BDO World Darts Championship - but there were two big shocks in the night session.
Veenstra, a former semi-finalist at Lakeside, raced into a 2-0 lead only to be pegged back by McKinstry, who threw a 144 checkout in the fourth set to force a decider.
Flyers, seeded 11th this week, then upped his game to fend off the Northern Irishman, who was making his debut in the event.
He'll next face Geert de Vos, who proved too ruthless for the promising Derk Telnekes in a 3-1 success.
Qualifier Telnekes showed why he's considered a future star with bursts of heavy scoring, but was too wasteful when it mattered to trouble the sixth seed.
De Vos narrowly lost out at the quarter-final stage last year, his best effort to date having been a regular at Lakeside since 2012.
INTERVIEW | Richard Veenstra after his 3-2 win over Kyle McKinstry.
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Earlier, our 50/1 pre-tournament tip Jim Williams rallied to beat Dennis Nilsson 3-2.
Nilsson, dubbed The Iron Man having finished runner-up in the Sweden's Strongest Man 15 years ago, was left to rue his failure to capitalise on a 2-0 lead as the ninth seed survived.
Williams will face Conan Whitehead as he seeks a place in the third round for the first time in his career.
Whitehead was a 3-1 winner against eighth seed Cameron Menzies in the evening session's opening match.
Menzies wasn't the only seed to crash out as the well fancied Jamie Hughes lost 3-2 in a thrilling clash with Michael Unterbuchner.
The third seed took the opening set thanks to impressive checkouts of 120 and 136 only for Unterbuchner to take six of the next seven legs to storm 2-1 up.
Hughes dug deep to edge the next set on a deciding leg before fighting back from 2-0 down in the fifth to go 3-2 up, needing to win by two clear legs to progress.
The Tipton thrower then missed two match darts to progress as the unseeded Unterbuchner made the most of his reprieve to claim a shock triumph.
Earlier Martin Phillips progressed 3-1 as he got the better of Martin Phillips.
Tuesday January 9
Afternoon Session (1pm)
First/Preliminary Round (Best of 5 sets)
TV Coverage: Channel 4
- (9) Jim Williams 3-2 Dennis Nilsson
- (11) Richard Veenstra 3-2 Kyle McKinstry
- (2) Aileen de Graaf 2-0 Paula Jacklin (Best of 3 sets)
- (6) Geert de Vos 3-1 Derk Telnekes
Evening Session (7pm)
First/Preliminary Round (Best of 5 sets)
TV Coverage: BT Sport
- (14) Martin Phillips 3-1 Daniel Day
- (6) Anastasia Dobromyslova 2-0 Anca Zijlstra (Best of 3 sets)
- (8) Cameron Menzies 1-3 Conan Whitehead
- (3) Jamie Hughes 2-3 Michael Unterbuchner
