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Northern Ireland darts player Daryl Gurney is into the third round of the William Hill World Darts Championship after he caused an upset by defeating Robert Thornton in the second round.

24th seed Gurney, from Derry, shocked the darting world by knocking out 9th seed Thornton in a seven set thriller at the Alexandra Palace.

Scotsman Thornton was expected to win the tie fairly easily against Gurney, but the Northern Irishman showed desire in their clash and came out on top, 4-3.

In fact, Gurney took the first two sets without dropping a leg, and was looking fairly comfortable in contrast with his opponent who was faltering.

But Thornton roared back, taking the next two sets to level the match, before rattling off the third to take him within one of victory.

It looked like that would be it with Thornton now in complete control and Gurney the one on the ropes.

However, the Derry man was not to be beaten and he recorded an outstanding 161 checkout on his way to taking the sixth set and forcing a decider.

And in that deciding set there was only ever going to be one winner: Gurney, buoyed by taking that 161, broke Thornton in the second leg and rounded off the match in the third.

His reward for winning the titanic tussle is a third round meeting with 25th seed Mark Webster in the third round on Thursday afternoon.

Webster also caused an upset this afternoon, knocking out 8th seed Mensur Suljovic, one of the outside bets for the overall tournament.

Gurney's fellow countyman, Brendan Dolan, is in second round action tomorrow against Holland's Jelle Klaasen.