Wednesday 21 December 2016 15:14, UK
Michael van Gerwen cruised into the William Hill World Darts Championship second round with a straight sets win over Kim Viljanen at Alexandra Palace.
Van Gerwen dropped just one leg on his way to defeating the impressive Finn, who dispatched Ross Snook in straight sets in the preliminary round earlier in the session.
The Dutchman posted an average of 103.34 - the highest of the tournament so far - and fired five maximums as he sealed victory in less than 30 minutes.
The world No 1 opened his title challenge with a 180 and posted maximums in each of his first three legs as he rattled through the first set.
Van Gerwen saw his hopes of a whitewash ended when Viljanen landed a double 10 to take the fifth leg of the match, but took out double four to go two sets clear before breezing through the third.
"I think I played okay for the first game," Van Gerwen told Sky Sports. "The first two sets were quite good and then I had the belief in myself that I was going to finish this game off."
Next up for Van Gerwen is a meeting with Cristo Reyes, who recovered from going a set down to edge past Belgian youngster Dimitri Van den Bergh 3-2 in a thrilling contest containing 13 180s.
Reyes grabbed a vital break of throw with a 64 checkout on his way to claiming the second set 3-1, before snatching the third with a stunning 124 finish.
Van den Bergh took out 88 in the final leg of the fourth to take the contest to a decider, where he missed two darts to force a tie-break and allowed the Spaniard to take out 78 to seal the win.
The surprise of the day came when 16th seed and former world quarter-finalist Stephen Bunting crashed out in a five-set thriller against Darren Webster.
Webster produced a series of high-scoring checkouts and recovered from going 2-1 down to whitewash Bunting in the fourth set.
After the first four legs of the decider were shared to force a tie-break, Bunting then squandered seven missed darts for the match to allow Webster to snatch victory with finishes of 84 and 66.
