Northern Ireland’s Josh Rock and Brendan Dolan lost their respective third-round matches at the PDC World Darts Championships at the Alexandra Palace on Saturday night.
Rock, from Co Antrim, was beaten 4-2 by England’s Chris Dobey, who twice came from behind to take the win, putting him one move away from his third consecutive world quarter-final.
Next up was Dolan facing three-time champion Michael van Gerwen of the Netherlands. The Enniskillen man won the opening set but Van Gerwen – chasing his first title since 2019 – charged through eight consecutive legs to seize control of the match at 3-1. The Dutchman somewhat fell over the line after dropping a scrappy fifth set to Dolan, the match ending 4-2.
Speaking after the win, Van Gerwen told Sky Sports: “It was a really difficult game. Everyone knows Brendan doesn’t give up, and I tried to punish him at the right moments and wasn’t capable of doing that.
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“After 1-1 I think I played some really good sets but I let it slip away with a few things. There’s still a lot of work to do, but I know I’m capable of doing it.”
In the final match of Saturday’s evening session, last year’s runner-up Luke Littler struggled to hit top form but still did enough to ease into the last 16 with a 4-1 win over Ian White.
The 17-year-old survived a series of errant doubles and had set darts against him in the first and fourth sets before finding his range when it mattered to sink his veteran opponent.
Littler, who averaged just under 98 for the match, told Sky Sports: “It was tough, Ian threw everything at me and I had to stay switched on.
“It was just a case of settling into it. I know what’s gone wrong tonight, the doubles, but most importantly, I’ve won.”
Littler almost suffered an early shock when White missed a dart for the first set, before more uncharacteristically loose doubles let the 54-year-old level the match at 1-1.
Littler looked to have stirred when he rounded off a much more impressive third set with a shot at bull, but he gifted White another set dart in the fourth before crucially snatching the set and moving on to complete his victory.
Littler will face Ryan Joyce in the last 16 after Joyce edged a nail-biting 4-3 win over Ryan Searle in the final match of the afternoon session.
At 3-2 down in the final set, Searle missed a single 20 to set up a dart at tops that would have tied the set at 3-3, and Joyce duly finished the job to earn his place in round four for the first time since 2019.
Also in the afternoon session, Nathan Aspinall took a 4-0 win over Andrew Gilding to set up a last 16 meeting with Ricardo Pietreczko, who brushed aside Scott Williams 4-1, wrapping up his victory with an impressive 121 checkout.
