Munyua

Seventh seed James Wade suffered a fourth successive second-round exit at the PDC World Championship, losing a thrilling tie to fellow Englishman Ricky Evans.

Both players missed match darts in the deciding set, with world number 43 Evans eventually taking it 6-4 in the fifth.

Wade is the highest-ranked seed to be eliminated so far and his defeat, along with Wessel Nijman’s loss earlier on Monday, means 14 of the 32 seeded players have been knocked out.

Dutch 31st seed Nijman lost in straight sets to Germany’s Gabriel Clemens, who reached the semi-finals in 2023.

Elsewhere, Kenyan debutant David Munyua was unable to follow up his shock win over Mike de Decker in round one, winning just two legs in a 3-0 defeat by world number 40 Kevin Doets.

Scotland’s Darren Beveridge was beaten 3-1 by Latvia’s Madars Razma in Monday’s opening match.

Kenyan debutant David Munyua caused a huge shock at the PDC World Championship, coming from two sets down to beat world number 18 Mike de Decker 3-2 at Alexandra Palace.

It was an enthralling encounter to end the afternoon session on Thursday, with Munyua missing darts to win the second set, doing the same in the third but coming back to win it, edging the fourth and coming back to win the fifth.

The 30-year-old, who qualified via the African Darts Group Qualifier, was broken in the first leg of the decider but produced an astounding outer bull-treble 20-bullseye 135 finish to level the fifth set, before holding his nerve to complete victory.

Another debutant, Japan’s Motomu Sakai, looked to have stolen the show earlier in the afternoon session as he beat Thibault Tricole of France in straight sets.

Sakai gained the support of the Alexandra Palace crowd with a long, exuberant walk-on and was a showman who played up to the fans throughout his match.

Elsewhere, world number 24 Ryan Joyce produced a composed display to see off fellow Englishman Owen Bates, averaging 95.27 and hitting nine of his 14 attempts at double.

Thursday’s other winner was world number 42 Callan Rydz, who only dropped three legs as he comfortably won 3-0 against Hungary’s Patrik Kovacs.