World Darts Championship: Gary Anderson beaten by Jeffrey De Graaf on night of shock exits at Alexandra Palace

Two-time world champion Gary Anderson crashed out of the World Darts Championship after a shock second-round loss to Jeffrey De Graaf at Alexandra Palace.

Anderson struggled throughout a one-sided contest against his unseeded opponent, winning just one leg and converting just three out of 20 attempts at double on his way to a straight-sets defeat against De Graaf.

De Graaf breezed through the first two sets without dropping a leg and broke Anderson again in the next, wrapping up a famous win to book a third-round meeting with Paolo Nebrida after Christmas.

Anderson’s birthday to forget was the first time he had lost his opening match in 16 World Championship appearances, on a night where fellow seeds Ross Smith and Martin Schindler were also knocked out.

More to follow…

Cullen cuts short media duties after cruising through

In the afternoon session, Joe Cullen stormed out of his post-match press conference after cruising through to the third round with a straight-sets victory over Dutchman Wessel Nijman.

Cullen had won just three of his last 12 matches before this year’s Worlds but produced one of his performance of the year, firing a 98.18 average to set up a meeting with former world champion Gerwyn Price after Christmas.

The Rockstar felt he had been disrespected in the build-up to the tournament, telling reporters: “I’ve been shown no respect, so I won’t share any respect to any of you guys tonight. I’m going to go home.”

Ryan Searle opened proceedings with an impressive 3-0 victory against Matt Campbell while Dirk van Duijvenbode became the latest seed to make an early exit after Latvian Madars Razma came from a set down to claim a 3-1 win.

Ian White also caused an upset after knocking out current European Championship winner Ritchie Edhouse, with a 3-1 win for ‘Diamond’ seeing him progress to play pre-tournament favourite Luke Littler in the third round.

“He [Littler] is Runcorn’s No 2 – I’m from Runcorn and I’m No 1!” White said. “You want to cause an upset. I’m all for it. Luke Littler has done everything for this sport at the moment.”

What is coming up on day nine?

The final eight second-round matches take place on Monday, with Jonny Clayton headlining the afternoon session against Mickey Mansell and former world youth champion Josh Rock up against Rhys Griffin.

Krzysztof Ratajski face Alexis Toylo in the opening match of the day and former UK Open champion Andrew Gilding opens his tournament against Martin Lukeman, while Dave Chisnall and former world champion Rob Cross are both involved in the evening session.

Chisnall plays Ricky Evans and Cross takes on Scott Williams, following on from Gian van Veen going up against Ricardo Pietreczko and Daryl Gurney playing Florian Hempel.

Who will win the Paddy Power World Darts Championship? Watch every match exclusively live until January 3 on Sky Sports’ dedicated darts channel. Stream darts and more top sport with NOW.