A truly remarkable Hamburg debut for the World Cup of Darts has resulted in half of the seeds exiting the tournament before Sunday, including the first and third seeds.
A new first-time semi-finalist is guaranteed from the "meme nation" slot as New Zealand play Japan. The Kiwis competed in the only pairs match on Saturday bettering Norn Iron's conquerors South Africa (largely due to Vernon Bouwers' complete meltdown) while the Japs disposed of Wales's conquerors Singapore 2-0, but both Seigo Asada and Haruki Muramatsu had very ropey doubling which could prove costly this afternoon.
The only all-seed affair follows with the seriously impressive second seeds Scotland facing seventh seeds Belgium. Gary Anderson and Peter Wright beat Sweden for the loss of just two legs, but Snakebite's performance was non-threatening to say the very least; Kim Huybrechts and Dimitri Van den Bergh weren't at their best either to get rid of host nation Germany, but will need a serious improvement to stop the Scots from getting to tonight.
Saturday evening's star performers then grace the stage as Republic of Ireland play eighth seeds Austria; William O'Connor's blistering 115 average eliminated England while Mensur Suljovic's stellar 113 average got rid of the Americans. This tie could be decided by the lesser players in Steve Lennon and Zoran Lerchbacher respectively, but if the mental Magpie and the gaga Gentle face off, prepare for fireworks!
Closing the afternoon is a probable dismantling of plucky Canada by the new-look Netherlands duo of Michael van Gerwen and Jermaine Wattimena. The Canucks played as well as they could in removing a lacklustre Australia from contention, but Mighty Mike and the Machine Gun capitalised on big errors from Poland in their singles games. Dawson Murschell and Jim Long will need to play the games of their lives if they're to produce another upset.
Coverage starts from 12:00pm UK time on Sky Sports Action.
