The Dutch player defeated England’s Chas Barstow 3-1 but the 2014, 2017 and 2019 winner was made to battle early on, with Barstow taking the opening set as he threatened what would have been the biggest upset of the tournament so far.

Van Gerwen found his rhythm and eventually ran out a comfortable winner in one of two second round matches played today.

The other match in round two saw England’s Ian White beat Chris Landman of The Netherlands 3-1 to set up a third round encounter with Scotland’s Gary Anderson, a winner at this event in 2015 and 2016.

In the day’s first round matches, Lithuania’s Darius Labanauskas made headlines despite being defeated after throwing a nine-dart finish to win the opening set against Mike De Decker of Belgium.

De Decker then hit form winning seven of the next nine legs to complete a 3-1 win, with Labanauskas admitting afterwards that he lost focus after his special moment - the second nine-dart finish within 24 hours at the tournament after Scotland’s William Borland managed the feat in the deciding leg of his match with Bradley Brooks of England yesterday.

Elsewhere, Australia’s Raymond Smith beat England’s Jamie Hughes 3-1, while Wales’ Jim Williams defeated England’s Ted Evetts by the same scoreline.

Three whitewash wins completed the day’s first round action, with England’s Callan Rydz, his compatriot Adam Hunt and Austria’s Rowby-John Rodriguez all running out 3-0 winners against Japan’s Yuki Yamada, Canada’s Boris Krčmar and Wales’ Nick Kenny respectively.

First and second round matches are scheduled to continue tomorrow, with contests including England’s Fallon Sherrock, the first woman to win a PDC World Championship match during her run to the last 32 in 2019, against compatriot Steve Beaton.