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Young Gun Lewis hit the ‘Jackpot’ in a thriller against veteran former World Champion Dennis Priestley.

He produced some stunning darts to race into a two set lead, before Priestley rolled back the years to level it up. In the end, class told as Lewis won 4-2 to clinch a clash with Dutch star Roland Scholten in the 3rd Round.

The Stoke-on-Trent youngster set a blistering pace, averaging an amazing 122 in the first set. He hit two 11-dart legs and two 180s.

A 12-darter clinched the second set, despite Priestley firing in three maximums. Then ‘The Menace’ slowed his game down even more and Lewis found it tough. A 110 check-out gave Mexborough man the 3rd set and he took the 4th comfortably.

But Lewis – tipped by so many as a future World Champion – wasn’t to be out-thought. A 129 check-out helped to restore the lead and he blitzed through the 6th set with three more 180s.

He said: “Dennis is very hard to play against but I hung on in there and it was a valuable learning curve for me. I know if I find my rhythm against Scholten, I will win.”

His mentor Phil Taylor made a stuttering start against ‘Superman’ Matt Clark. The Kent publican took the first set but that was the sign for ‘The Power’ to switch up the voltage.

Taylor dropped only two more legs in the entire match, as he coasted to a 4-1 win and a date with either Terry Jenkins or Andy Hamilton.

“I felt a lot more relaxed up there,” he said. “I wasn’t at all worried about losing that first set.”

Taylor has been practising with Andy Fordham at The Viking’s pub in Dartford and it is clearly paying off. “I will get more confident as each match comes along.”

Unicorn’s World No.7 Kevin Painter was pushed all the way by Fleetwood’s Wes Newton, eventually winning 4-3 in a final set tie-break.

It was a see-saw tussle. Newton went 3-2 up and missed darts to really hurt Painter.
‘The Artist’ was forced to draw on all his experience. He went ahead for the first time in the 28th leg of the match in that nail-biting final set.

Painter banged in six 180s and produced some class darts to finally take the decider 6 legs to 4.

He now plays Mark ‘Flash’ Dudbridge, who easily saw off qualifier Alan Tabern 4-0.
Elsewhere on day six, Steve Alker beat number nine seed Denis Ovens, Dennis Smith was a surprise 4-0 winner over Mark Walsh and Roland Scholten beat German Tomas Seyler 4-2.

Unicorn’s John Part features in the match of day seven against Chris Mason. This should be brilliant to watch.

By Stuart Pyke