Darts: Singapore's Paul and Harith Lim count on experience to beat Gibraltar in World Cup opener

SINGAPORE - Between them, Paul Lim and Harith Lim have more than 60 years of experience playing competitive darts.

On Thursday (Sept 9), the Singaporeans required all of that, and a healthy dose of Hokkien pep talk, to beat Gibraltar 19-year-olds Sean Negrette and Justin Hewitt 5-4 at the World Cup of Darts in Jena, Germany.

They will face four-time champions and third seeds Netherlands - Michael van Gerwen and Dirk van Duijvenbode - in the second round on Saturday, after the Dutch pair beat Denmark's 5-1.

Paul, a 67-year-old consultant for electronic darts company Dartslive, told The Straits Times: "Of course, we would have preferred a more straightforward victory. We didn't make it this exciting on purpose!"

Since their World Cup debut in 2014, Singapore have built for themselves a reputation as giant-killers. They surprised third seeds Wales in 2019 and top seeds Scotland in 2017, which was also when they went on to record their best finish by reaching the quarter-finals.

This year, however, they pulled a different rabbit out of the hat in the best-of-nine-legs, first-round showdown at the Sparkassen-Arena.

Paul and Harith had started the match well, but missed nine attempts at a double to win the first leg. With Hewitt in fine scoring and finishing form early on, Singapore found themselves in a rut.

Harith, a 52-year-old who works for a property developer, said: "We were scoring well and quite comfortable, but when we started missing the doubles, doubts started to creep in."

Paul added with a chuckle: "Darts is a funny game and we are going to miss shots every now and then. We were quite annoyed with ourselves and there was a lot of Hokkien conversation on the stage, none of which can be printed on a family newspaper."

After losing the first three legs of a match, in which the objective is to be the first to reduce a score of 501 to exactly zero with a double, they were 4-2 down and on the verge of only a second first-round exit.

But with victory in sight, the Europeans felt the jitters and threw too many loose darts as the Singaporeans took over and clawed their way back. Harith hit an outstanding clearance of 108 to make it 4-4, before Paul sealed the nervy win with a 116 finish.

Paul said: "We took it one leg at a time, and that's where our experience showed. The pressure and excitement got to our opponents when they saw the finish line."

Harith added: "We dug deep and never gave up. We turned the corner in the eighth leg because they were left with only 71, and took advantage of throwing first in the final leg to win the match."

The unrelated Lims know they will have to play a lot better to stand a chance of upsetting the mighty Dutch in a different format for the second round, where there are two best-of-seven-legs singles games first. If the score is tied, the match will be decided by a best-of-seven-legs doubles challenge.

Harith said: "We will definitely be practising and working on our triples and doubles, but we don't approach a match thinking about whether we are favourites or underdogs. Regardless of our opponents, we believe anything can happen, and we will try our best to make things happen."