 Van Barneveld was made to work for victory by Barbadian Forde |
Raymond van Barneveld began the defence of his PDC World Championships title in unconvincing fashion despite beating rank outsider Anthony Forde 3-0. The Barbadian, 45, had chances to win the second set before Van Barneveld edged it and also won two further legs.
Two-time former world champion Dennis "The Menace" Priestley is out after a 3-1 defeat to Steve Maish.
Ex-BDO champion Jelle Klaasen went out at the first stage in an epic to fellow Dutchman Vincent van der Voort 3-2.
The game went to sudden-death in the final set after Klaasen missed 10 chances to win and it was Van der Voort who held his nerve to win a pulsating contest.
Number six seed Andy Hamilton had earlier overcome the scare of a foot injury to reach the second round by beating Leroy Kwaidjk.
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Hamilton held his nerve to beat the Dutch youngster 3-1, despite slipping down a flight of stairs on Wednesday.
"I'll go back home and have an X-ray on it, but it didn't affect my performance too much," said Hamilton.
Number 16 seed Andy Jenkins narrowly avoided an upset, coming from 2-1 down to beat Miloslav Navratil 3-2.
Czech qualifier Navratil made five 180s before being out-gunned by Jenkins' late surge of six straight legs.
Jenkins said: "I started to panic when he went 2-1 up. I thought I was going out but I kept fighting and eventually he broke."
Elsewhere in the first round, Tony Eccles thrashed number 23 seed Wayne Jones 3-0, while 27th seed Alex Roy came from behind to beat Warren Parry 3-2.
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