Wade battles through

James Wade held his nerve to book an appetising second round date with Mervyn King at the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton.

The second seed appeared to be cruising at 4-1 ahead in his sudden-death shoot-out with Vincent van der Voort, however the Dutchman produced an inspired fightback to take the match into a deciding leg.

Both men scored heavily, however Wade produced a scintillating 122 finish to progress.

Welshman Mark Webster suffered heartbreak when he beat Gary Anderson 5-3 earlier in the night - but missed six darts to put himself in the last 16.

Webster needed to win 5-1 to deny Wayne Jones a last 16 spot, while 5-2 would have forced a nine-dart shootout.

Disastrous

But he wasted six darts to win 5-1 and although he won the match, he went out as Anderson progressed along with Jones who saw off Mark Hylton 5-3 in Group B.

Scotland's Anderson will play Colin Osborne in round two after the Derby-based dartist saw off Dave Chisnall to progress.

'The Wizard' stormed into a 4-1 lead before eventually sealing a 5-3 triumph on double 16.

Another 'wizard' - Simon Whitlock - ended his disastrous campaign with a third straight defeat as he went down 5-2 to Robert Thornton.

Australian Whitlock, 41 - runner-up in this season's world championship to Phil Taylor - took the opening leg with double top.

But Thornton won the next three and although Whitlock reduced the deficit to 3-2, the Scot eased to his third victory in Group A and finished the encounter with a superb 167 checkout.

Tony O'Shea also ended the group stages with three wins as he edged past Justin Pipe 5-4, while Terry Jenkins had few problems in seeing off the challenge of American PDC Unicorn women's world champion Stacy Bromberg 5-0 in Group C to seal his place in the last 16.

King also progressed from Group C, as he made it three wins out of three with a narrow 5-4 success over Scottish wildcard John Henderson.