Darts: Brown fights back to win meeting with 'The Power'

America'S Steve Brown secured a second-round match with 10-times world champion Phil Taylor after a thrilling victory against wild card entrant David Platt in the first match of the PDC Ladbrokes.com World Championship at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet yesterday.

Platt made Brown work surprisingly hard to earn his tie with 'The Power'. The 35-year-old from Walsall roared out of the blocks to establish an early two-set advantage, winning the opener 3-1 then checking out on 106 to wrap up the second set in three straight legs.

However, Brown, a semi-finalist here in 1994, showed his experience and calmly clawed his way back into the encounter by winning five straight legs on his way to levelling the match at 2-2.

The fifth set was a much closer affair which went down to the deciding leg and Platt was made to pay the penalty for missing three set-winning darts at doubles with Brown capitalising to go 3-2 ahead. That proved to be the pivotal moment as the world No 25 saw off the amateur 3-1 in the sixth set, helped by a 132 outshot, to book his place in the second round.

In yesterday afternoon's other matches, 57-year-old Reg Harding from Lewes edged out the Derbyshire qualifier Mark Robinson 4-3 while Manchester's Mark Holden and Dave Smith of Leeds also slugged out all seven sets.

Harding was behind 3-0, but fought back to level the match 3-3 before coming through a tense final set 4-2 to seal a second-round meeting with Kevin Painter. He was joined in the last 32 by Holden, who now faces Jamie Harvey after edging a dour battle against Smith.