Wade pounces on missed doubles to record third consecutive win over Harms, Van Gerwen eases past Williams

James Wade and Michael van Gerwen have added points to the board as expected against BDO opposition in Wesley Harms and Jim Williams respectively.

Wade has an excellent record against Harms and it showed with him being barely troubled and putting in a typical 'Machine' performance of doing enough to win.

Van Gerwen similarly pounced on Williams, who did not play to his best and could not find the trebles to claim a 5-2 win and give himself a winning start in a group that includes two players well known to Mighty Mike in Ross Smith and Adrian Lewis.

Harms showed signs of poor doubling to begin the tie busting his score when on a finish which allowed Wade to take the lead in the early going.

Further missed doubles allowed Wade to go 3-0 ahead and he looked to be coasting to victory from there. This though was halted slightly by Harms who took out 62 to go 3-2 behind.

He squandered three darts at doubles and Wade mopped up on double five to lead 4-2 despite only hitting 26 percent on doubles meaning he was doing his usual and that is doing just enough to win and he delivered from there winning 5-2 to collect two points to see him go alongside Ian White in contention to move through.

Van Gerwen on the other hand started in typical Mighty Mike fashion, like a train as he quickly got into a 2-0 lead over Jim Williams.

A 68 finish saw him go further in proceedings in a 3-0 lead as Williams was only averaging around the 74 mark. Two missed darts to break saw Williams miss another chance and it was 4-1 to Van Gerwen.

Williams finally started to find his form at 4-2 down but it was too little too late with Van Gerwen easing to victory with a blockbuster 145 checkout to seal it.

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Grand Slam of Darts 2019, Day One

Evening session schedule

Darren Webster (96.7) 3-5 (98.87) William O'Connor (D)
Gerwyn Price (88.21) 5-3 (84.24) Mikuru Suzuki (C)
Ian White (88.94) 5-2 (90.42) Steve Lennon (B)
Gary Anderson (94.75) 5-1 (86.2) Dave Parletti (D)
James Wade (93.72) 5-2 (86.78) Wesley Harms (B)
Michael van Gerwen (97.89) 5-2 (83.34) Jim Williams (A)
23:00 Adrian Lewis v Ross Smith (A)
23:30 Dimitri Van den Bergh v Robert Thornton (C)

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