Paul Lim pulled off a shock win on his 25th world championship appearance, fighting back from 2-0 down to beat Luke Humphries 3-2.
The 66-year-old, who has been playing professional darts since 1973, has barely played competitively this year with the PDC’s Asian Tour on hold amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Lim could not keep pace with his opponent’s heavy scoring early in the match and Humphries looked set for a routine win when he took out 103 to take a two-set lead.
The ‘Singapore Slinger’ hit back with a break of throw to start the third set, winning it 3-1 to get back in the game. In the fourth set Humphries, twice a quarter-finalist at Alexandra Palace, broke Lim in the third leg and missed a match dart in the fourth.
Lim then hit checkouts of 56 and 84 to take the match to a decider, where Humphries’ confidence evaporated. The world No 34 missed 12 darts at a double in the third leg, and Lim eventually hit double four for a crucial break.
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Throwing for the match, Lim was left with a 53 checkout when his opponent missed double 13. Lim finished on double top for the kind of dramatic win that would have raised the Ally Pally roof in normal circumstances.
Incredible scenes here at Ally Pally as 66-year-old Paul Lim, in his 25th World Championship, comes from 2-0 down to defeat Luke Humphries 3-2!
Now that, was DRAMA! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/UUscNmsZQf
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) December 18, 2020
“One for the old guys!” Lim joked after the match. “At the end, it was a battle. I kept telling myself to put pressure on him. I had to dig deep.” In the second round, he will face the reigning World Matchplay champion, Dimitri Van den Bergh.
After Lim’s epic victory, No 7 seed James Wade made comparatively quick work of his second-round contest with Callan Rydz. The former semi-finalist raced through the first set but Rydz responded and earned three darts at double six to level at 1-1. The qualifier missed all three and Wade inflicted a killer blow, taking out 100 to go 2-0 up.
Wade swiftly wrapped up a 3-0 victory with a 93.17 average, and was bullish about his chances of claiming a first world title. “I have a renewed enthusiasm for darts. I have a lot of good people around me and I’m in a good place at the moment,” he said. “If I play my best game then I will win this tournament quite comfortably.”
Scotland’s John Henderson was unhappy with his form despite coming through a five-set battle with Finland’s Marko Kantele. “I’ve won but I was awful,” said Henderson. “It was terrible at times but I did enough to get through.”
Dirk van Duijvenbode rallied from two sets down to deny world youth champion Bradley Brooks. The 20-year-old from Blackburn had looked in control, but his Dutch opponent found form to reel off nine straight legs and set up a second-round meeting with the 2018 champion, Rob Cross.
In Friday’s afternoon session, Jamie Hughes became the first seed to be eliminated as he lost 3-0 to Adam Hunt, who followed up his first-round victory over Lisa Ashton. Hughes averaged just 75.36 in a below-par performance as Hunt cruised into the third round, where he will face either Cross or Van Duijvenbode.
Elsewhere, Mickey Mansell earned his first world championship win in style, winning all nine legs in a whitewash of New Zealand’s Haupai Puha. Wayne Jones, a semi-finalist back in 2006, ended a nine-year wait to win at Ally Pally as he beat Ireland’s Ciaran Teehan in a five-set thriller.