World Cup of Darts 2017: Netherlands Dominate, England Advance on Friday

The Netherlands and England lived up their status as 2017 World Cup of Darts favourites on Friday, beating the Czech Republic and Gibraltar, respectively.

Michael van Gerwen and Raymond van Barneveld in particular impressed, averaging better than 115 at one point in their dominant outing. With Singapore upsetting Scotland on Thursday, the Dutch are the clear favourites at this point.

Here are Friday's scores:

USA 5-1 Italy
Hungary 2-5 Canada
Austria 5-0 China
South Africa 5-3 Sweden
Brazil 5-4 Switzerland
Northern Ireland 4-5 Germany
England 5-2 Gibraltar
Netherlands 5-1 Czech Republic

For the full schedule and updated bracket, click here.

Recap

Reigning world champion Van Gerwen and Van Barneveld put on quite the show on Friday, losing just a single leg on their way to an easy 5-1 win over the Czech Republic.

The Czechs took their only leg thanks to a marvelous 121 finish from Frantisek Humpula, but everything else went the Netherlands' way. They even recorded a 10-darter, a special achievement as a duo, to send a clear warning to the rest of the field.

Harry Trump/Getty Images

Gibraltar gave it all they had in their loss against England, winning two legs against the strong duo of Dave Chisnall and Adrian Lewis.

There was a real buzz in the arena when the team tied things up after England had taken the lead in the first leg, and darts blogger Chris Murphy explained why:

"

These short format pairs matches are a real leveller. Unpredictable, dramatic and exciting entertainment at the World Cup of #Darts 

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphy180) June 2, 2017"

But as expected, Chizzy and Jackpot pushed the pace to jump out to a quick 4-1 lead, and while they would concede another leg, England sealed the deal fairly easy. Here's a look at the final darts:

Earlier in the evening, the Germans booked their spot in the next round with a close win over Northern Ireland. As shared by the PDC's official Twitter account, the celebrations with the home fans were something special:

Brazil beat Switzerland to make their first World Cup outing a dream debut, and Austria recorded the first whitewash win of the tournament, beating China.