Essex hero Maish goes through

Local hero Steve Maish had his Essex fans singing with delight after a 3-0 victory over Tony Payne in the third match of Saturday's evening session at the Circus Tavern.

It was a comfortable night's work for the Southend favourite on his Darts World Championship debut, with his Ohio opponent's hopes going west from the moment he lost the opening set 3-0.

The next set was almost as emphatic, Maish showing no mercy and outscoring an opponent who rarely got close enough to a check-out to pressure the Englishman. And even though Maish's finishing wasn't outstanding, it didn't need to be.

With five straight legs under his belt, a comedy of errors from Maish, who missed eight shots to tie up the set, allowed big Tony to get on the scoreboard.

It was tantamount to using a bread roll as a speed bump though, with Maish's second maximum of the encounter in the next leg clearing the road to a 3-1 second-set success.

Only the brave would have bet on the American taking the opening leg of the third against the throw but, against all odds, that's how it went, despite another 180 from Steve.

Another full bed of treble-20s in the second leg meant the score was soon levelled and it was no surprise to see the confident Maish hold his throw in the next.

Payne did his best to dig in, but when he missed two goes at double tops it was all over bar the shouting and Maish hit the same target to tee up a mouth-watering second-round clash against Cliff Lazarenko.

Wrapping up the first day’s play 'The Phil Taylor of Guyana', Norman Madhoo, had no answer to the precision of Steven Smith, who took the match of day one in Purfleet 3-1.

Though a 10-times Guyanese national champion, Madhoo had arrived in Essex as something of an unknown quantity and took some time to get into his stride.

An early maximum helped Smith, the second youngest competitor in the tournament, take the first leg and though his opponent had his chance with a 91 check-out in the next, that went the same way thanks to a cool D16.

Two-nil became three-nil when Smudger again held his nerve to land D10, having been put under pressure by a timely 171 from Norman.

Low scores of 28, 30 and 43 meant Madhoo put himself on the back foot on his own throw at the top of the second set and, despite a brave attempt at a 134 check-out, the 2003 Barbados Masters champion could only watch as Smith nailed a T19/20/D10 finish.

And that set the tone for the next two legs, as the youngster from down the road in Dagenham stormed to back-to-back whitewashes.

When Madhoo finally got off the mark against the throw at the start of the third set, finding D9 at his fourth attempt, Smith's massed ranks of supporters might have thought it a temporary blip.

But while Steven responded to that setback in the best possible fashion, with an instant 180, he was unable to break back and found himself 2-0 in arrears.

He managed to save the set on his own throw in the third leg but, having looked down and out only a few minutes earlier, Norman held his nerve on his second trip to the oche for D20 to pull back a set.

That joy proved to be short-lived, however. Faced with a 15 check-out, a wild dart from Madhoo brought a 'no score' and Smith capitalised with a D10 to steal the first leg of the fourth against the throw.

It signalled the beginning of the end for the underdog, as the next three legs went with the darts and another local favourite was safely through.