Sunday 28 December
Players ranked 25-32 in the World rankings came into play as the tournament began its second round. Matches were still over best of 5 sets. The afternoon session brought a succession of 3-0 scorelines for the qualifiers from yesterday. Richie Buckle defeated Steve Brown and lost just four legs against the man who had been in the Semi-Finals here a decade earlier. Colin McGarry knocked out Mark Holden who would throw his darts away and retire after this 3-0 loss, however Holden was suffering from Dartitis. Wayne Atwood was at his best in eliminating Mick Manning 3-0. Manning lost the first two sets 3-0 before putting up resistance in the third set before losing it 3-2. Atwood averaged 87.93 and moves into a match against two time finalist and number 3 seed Peter Manley in the third round. The final match saw Mark Walsh knocked out 3-0 by Erik Clarys.
The evening session followed the form book more, however there was the prospect of lightening striking twice in the same place. Alex McKay again recovered from behind to level the match at 2-2 with Lionel Sams. The match of the round it proved to be as the pair served up a memorable contest, Each of the opening 4 sets went 3-2 making the tie-break inevitable. Sams edged the fifth set by five legs to three to go through with an 85.83 average. Following this he proposed to his girlfriend Caroline live on Sky.
Mark Dudbridge would go through 3-0 against Steven Smith however this didn't tell the full story as Smith took five legs and Mark took two deciding legs to go 2-0 up and the third by 3-1 to book his date against John Part the defending champion in the third round. Simon Whatley would start off a great week for him in a 3-1 win over Robbie Widdows who didn't score as heavily as he had in the first round. In the final match 'Big' Cliff Lazarenko went out 3-1 to Steve Maish.
Read more about this topic: 2004 PDC World Darts Championship, Day 2
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