Kevin Doets survived a scare to defeat Noa-Lynn van Leuven 3-1 in the first round of the PDC World Championship.
Doets will next face 2023 champion Michael Smith after a victory over Dutch compatriot Van Leuven, who was the first transgender player to compete in the tournament.
“It was very difficult, especially at the beginning. She played better than me at the beginning. It was really hard,” Doets said after coming from behind in the set.
Van Leuven showed no signs of nervousness as she took part in the first set, which included a 120-person box office at Alexandra Palace in London.
However, she lost the second set after missing several chances for a double with the score at 1-1 before Doets finally secured a remarkable double one after 33 shots.
This proved to be the turning point as Doets took the lead, although Van Leuven hit six 180s in total, including two in the fourth period of the second set, before missing a triple 20 when throwing potentially nine darts.
Doets averaged 88.13, while his opponent scored 87.02, and secured his place in the second round.
Assessing the marathon leg, Doets told Sky Sports: “Every world championship has a leg like that. Today I was unlucky. It was hard. With this leg and every leg I fought, fought, fought.”
Commentator Dan Dawson said: “This proved to be the turning point because if Noa-Lynn takes one of his chances to win this match, he breaks the shot, takes a 2-0 set lead, and then Kevin is really under him.
“But within a few minutes he leveled the game, dominated in that small part of the game and that gave him the platform to win the game.”
