THE European Tour began with the Belgian Open , and night one provided shocks as well as four deciding legs across the 16 matches.
Perhaps the standout tie came between Luke Littler and Jose de Sousa, with a match against 13th seed Krzysztof Ratajski awaiting the winner.
Both players lost their first throws, and it was de Sousa that held first with fantastic 103 finish to lead 2-1.
Sousa then took out 121 to complete a 12 dart leg to regain his lead at 3-2, and magic would follow from his opponent in the leg after.
Littler would smash in back to back maximums to start leg six, and in his third visit hitting T20 before only just missing T19.
Despite narrowly missing a nine darter , he would still be under pressure in that leg as he missed four leg darts before finding his favourite D10 to level the scores again.
Both players would hold throw until the decisive leg 11, with the outsider de Sousa having the darts in hand.
It would not be a de Sousa match without comedy, as with 120 left to finish he would only score seven, leaving Littler on 25 which he would dispatch to take the victory.
Masters champion Stephen Bunting would also win in a decider, up against recent UK Open winner Dimitri van Den Bergh.
Bunting had a set advantage on his opponent three times across the match, but was pegged back level to force a deciding leg, in which van Den Bergh would throw first.
The Bullet would flirt with the possibility of a 167 finish by hitting T20, but missing the subsequent T19, which left van Den Burgh on 72 to win.
The Belgian would ruin his chance to get match darts, by missing T18, and then fluffing his setup shot of 20 to throw the advantage back into Bunting’s hands.
He would require 68 which was taken out at the first attempt, meaning Bunting will play Josh Rock in round two.
The biggest scalp of the night came from Richard Veenstra as he beat Premier League night five winner Nathan Aspinall 6-3
There were also deciding leg wins for James Wade (against Raymond van Barneveld) and Mike De Decker (against Chris Landman).
Elsewhere across the two sessions, there were victories for Joe Cullen, Peter Wright and Chris Dobey.
Round two will begin at midday (UK time) on Saturday the 9th of April, with the full draw found on the PDC website.
