De Zwaan misses perfection en route to victory over Goedl, Rodriguez thrills home crowd with win over Payne

The first round is complete at the Austrian Darts Championship with Jeffrey de Zwaan, Rowby-John Rodriguez and Kyle Anderson making it through.

De Zwaan averaged 90 en route to beating Christian Goedl in a 6-3 win. The highlight though came when 'The Black Cobra' went so close to hitting perfection and adding to the nine-dart club list.

He missed double 12 though in the final leg of the tie but went on to complete the victory and ease through to the second round.

Rodriguez delighted the home crowd by seeing off Josh Payne and joins his brother Rusty-Jake in the next round. 'Little John' had to come from behind to do so though.

He was 4-1 down against 'The Maximum' but saw off the Gravesend ace in a last leg decider as was the theme with most of the ties on the opening day.

The line-up was completed by Anderson who edged out Stephen Bunting in a 6-4 victory in the final first round tie.

Despite not having the best time of it on the World Series, having that match practice relative to other players over the past few weeks may hold the key to a good run this weekend from the Original.

He averaged 93 with 2 180's and a high checkout of 127 in an overall polished performance to move through to Saturday's proceedings.

Click here for more information about the PDC European Tour, including the format, calendar and the prize fund breakdown.

Austrian Darts Championship schedule

Day One, evening session

Alex Steinbauer (77.74) 4-6 (86.54) Kirk Shepherd
Mark Webster (91.3) 3-6 (101.71) Dimitri Van den Bergh
Luke Humphries (88.99) 6-5 (88.56) Jamie Hughes
Hannes Schnier (82.89) 5-6 (80.53) Keegan Brown
Mike De Decker (90.59) 6-5 (85.26) Chris Dobey
Rowby-John Rodriguez (86.8) 6-5 (86.58) Josh Payne
Jeffrey de Zwaan (90.02) 6-3 (83.46) Christian Goedl
Kyle Anderson (93.12) 6-4 (96.73) Stephen Bunting

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