Stephen Bunting survived a scare before the No 4 seed progressed into the second round of the world championship on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Bunting, a semi-finalist last year, was taken to a tie-breaker by Poland\u2019s Sebastian Bialecki before edging through 3-2 at Alexandra Palace.<\/p>\n
The Merseysider was pegged back after making a superb start and averaging 119.4 as he powered through the first set. Victory had seemed within his grasp as he recorded a 160 checkout on his way to taking the second set.<\/p>\n
Bunting cooled, however, and won just one leg over the next two sets, allowing Bialecki \u2013 oblivious to a wasp that landed on his shoulder \u2013 to pull back level. Bunting recovered his composure in the fifth leg but was still taken to the wire before winning it 4-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you are playing at Ally Pally you go through all the emotions,\u201d Bunting told Sky Sports. \u201cI knew Sebastian was going to be tough and even at 2-0 he never gave in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am lucky to get away with that one. I need to regroup, get back on the practice board and make sure I am ready for the next game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The Royal Bengal\u2019 celebrates his historic moment. Photograph: Andrew Redington\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
His second-round opponent will be Nitin Kumar, who became the first Indian winner at the event when he defeated the Dutchman Richard Veenstra 3-2 earlier in the day. The 40-year-old had lost in all four of his previous first-round encounters, but this time he made history and suggested the victory could have \u201copened the floodgates to a billion\u201d darts players from India.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what to say right now. I\u2019m overwhelmed, I\u2019m happy,\u201d Kumar said. \u201cIf you dream it, anything is possible. I\u2019ve dreamed of this ever since I saw Dennis Priestley win the world championship [in 1994].<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry, 10 years down the line if you have eight people in the world championship walking on to Bollywood music, don\u2019t blame me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry, 10 years down the line if you have eight people in the world championship walking on to Bollywood music, don\u2019t blame me.Nitin Kumar<\/p>\n
Scotland\u2019s Darren Beveridge made an impressive world championship debut as he averaged 91.62 en route to a convincing 3-0 win against Dimitri Van den Bergh. His Belgian opponent won just one leg in the one-sided encounter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is absolutely fantastic,\u201d Beveridge said. \u201cI dreamed of this when I was 13 years old and 19 years later I\u2019m managing to win games on this stage. This is one of the greatest days of my life and I cannot believe it, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s Jonny Tata, another debutant, ended the hopes of the world No 27 Ritchie Edhouse 3-0 and fellow newcomer Dom Taylor saw off Sweden\u2019s Oskar Lukasiak by the same scoreline.<\/p>\n
Joe Cullen, the world No 32, was in good form as he eased past Bradley Brooks 3-0. The Dutchman Wesley Plaisier beat Germany\u2019s Lukas Wenig 3-1, while in the final match of the evening James Hurrell saw off America\u2019s Stowe Buntz 3-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Bunting survived a scare before the No 4 seed progressed into the second round of the world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-184347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}