Dart fans in fancy dress light up the opening night of World Darts Championship

Subscribe to our channel: https://goo.gl/pqS0mLDart fans in fancy dress light up the opening night of World Darts Championship. It's the annual sports extravaganza that grabs top billing in the build up to Christmas and darts fans were keen to get into the festive spirit on the opening night of the World Darts Championship.

There was a colourful collection of giraffes, lobsters and road cones to greet the players at Alexandra Palace on Thursday night.

Fans also sported American Football jerseys, Christmas jumpers and Santa hats for the first round matches.

They saw Rob Cross begin the defence of his World Championship title with a battling 3-1 victory over Jeffrey De Zwaan.

The world champion came into the tournament in mixed form 12 months on from stunning the world and arguably faced the toughest of the second-round ties.

De Zwaan cruised through the first set, having beaten Nitin Kumar 3-0 earlier in the night, but Cross bounced back in style.

The 28-year-old thrived off the pressure, like he did when beating Michael Van Gerwen and Phil Taylor last year, averaging 103.66 as he reached the third round.