Newly crowned world champion Luke Littler began his defense of his Bahrain Masters title with a 6-3 victory over Lourence Ilagan in Sakhir.
Littler, who raised his maiden PDC senior trophy he was leading 4-1 at the tournament 12 months ago when Filipino Ilagan won back-to-back matches, putting a bit of pressure on the 17-year-old.
However, a score of 142 in the eighth game brought Littler back into control and he eventually cruised to victory with an average of 94.36.
There was a shock in the opening match when world number three Rob Cross was beaten 6-3 by Paolo Nebrida, ranked 91st below.
Nebrida, 30, emerged victorious with a double-top finish to become the first Filipino player to win a game in the World Series.
World number one Luke Humphries averaged 103.66 and hit six of six doubles to defeat hosts Abdulla Saeed 6-0.
Thursday’s first round will pit eight players from the PDC circuit against eight players from Asia in a first-to-six match.
The quarterfinals, semifinals and final are scheduled for Friday.
Welshman Gerwyn Price booked his place in the last eight after a 6-3 victory over 23-year-old Lok Yin Lee from Hong Kong.
Debutants Stephen Bunting and Chris Dobey also came through, beating India’s number one Nitin Kumar (6-2) and Bahrain’s Basem Mahmood (6-0) respectively.
Scotsman Peter Wright defeated Filipino Alexis Toylo 6-3, and Englishman Nathan Aspinall won 6-2 against China’s Xiaochen Zong.
