Heta, O'Connor, Van der Voort, Schindler & Clayton open Players Championship 23 with whitewash victories

Players Championship 23 in underway and the first results are filtering through from Leicester. Among them have been a number of whitewash victories.

One of the dominant winners, has been Vincent van der Voort. ‘The Dutch Destroyer’ won 6-0 over Ricardo Pietreczko in the first round. Pietreczko had to pull out injured at the Hungarian Darts Trophy last weekend. That his wrist injury is still not over was evident from his performance at the Leicester dual. On Tuesday, the German threw an average of 83, and in his match against Van der Voort only 68. The Dutchman himself countered that with an average of 88, although he did finish the match beautifully with a 12-darter.

Elsewhere, William O'Connor eased past Danny Noppert. 'The Freeze' suffered a hopeless 6-0 defeat against O'Connor, who recorded an average of over 100. Damon Heta, Jonny Clayton and Martin Schindler also bagged themselves a bagel in the opening round.

Thirteen players from the top-16 seedings qualified for the last 64. Among others, Luke Humphries, Dave Chisnall, Rob Cross, Ross Smith, Gerwyn Price and Gary Anderson survived the first shuffle.

Some haven't been so lucky though. Stephen Bunting has already departed, losing out to Jurjen Van de Velde. Callan Rydz, Kim Huybrechts, Haupai Puha and more have left.