Luke Littler, Nathan Aspinall, Michael Smith and Raymond van Barneveld among early winners at Players Championship 8

The first round is up and running at Players Championship 8 with a myriad of big names already through to the second round in Leicester including Luke Littler, Nathan Aspinall, Michael Smith and Raymond van Barneveld.

Littler saw off Christian Perez 6-4 with a 94 average fending off a fightback from the Filipino thrower in the process to move through. He was joined in the next round by Nathan Aspinall who thrashed Steve Beaton 6-1.

Michael Smith only averaged 90, but prevailed past Mario Vandenbogaerde to seal his spot in the next round. As Raymond van Barneveld and Chris Dobey seeing off Matt Campbell and Niels Zonneveld respectively also made their way through.

Of the 32-17 seeds who played early, James Wade, Joe Cullen, Krzysztof Ratajski and Jose de Sousa all bowed out at the first hurdle with otherwise success for the big names. Michael van Gerwen, Gerwyn Price and Luke Humphries will be underway shortly with their campaigns starting after the latter seeds.