{"id":3157,"date":"2025-12-12T23:28:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T23:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=3157"},"modified":"2025-12-12T23:28:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T23:28:18","slug":"world-darts-championship-gian-van-veen-and-rob-cross-into-second-round-but-ross-smith-loses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=3157","title":{"rendered":"World Darts Championship: Gian van Veen and Rob Cross into second round but Ross Smith loses"},"content":{"rendered":"

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European champion Gian van Veen has booked his place in the second round of the PDC World Championship but 12th seed Ross Smith suffered a shock first-round exit.<\/b><\/p>\n

Expectations are high for Van Veen after a successful 2025 and, after falling at the first hurdle in his two previous visits to Alexandra Palace, there will have been an element of relief following his 3-1 win over Spain’s Cristo Reyes.<\/p>\n

The Dutch 10th seed, a two-time world youth champion, battled to victory in the first set despite being short of his best before stepping it up in the second, averaging 107, to go 2-0 up.<\/p>\n

Reyes hit back in the third after taking out 167 to win the first leg and earned a break in the fourth, only for Van Veen to show his grit and come back to secure his first win at the tournament.<\/p>\n

“Finally across that line,” the 23-year-old, who averaged 98.91, told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

“Today, walking on this stage, you feel like a 16-year-old again – I was so nervous! But as soon as the first darts went in, I was like ‘OK, you belong here’.”<\/p>\n

But while Van Veen can prepare for round two, Smith is heading home after a 3-2 loss to 50-year-old debutant Andreas Harrysson of Sweden.<\/p>\n

Smith missed six match darts in the fourth set and was made to pay as Harryson pressed on to win the deciding set by three legs to one.<\/p>\n

Also in the evening session, England’s Ricky Evans beat Hong Kong’s Man Lok Leung 3-0 and Australian 16th seed Damon Heta earned a 3-1 win over Ireland’s Steve Lennon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#World #Darts #Championship #Gian #van #Veen #Rob #Cross #Ross #Smith #loses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

European champion Gian van Vee… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[242],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}