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The 54-year-old Wright only averaged 89.63 to his opponent’s 93.77, but did enough to progress.
Sporting a purple mohawk and festive outfit, crowd favourite ‘Snakebite’ showed glimpses of his best to win the first set and survived eight set darts to go 2-0 ahead.
He lost the next but Dutchman Plaisier missed two more set darts in the fourth and Wright seized his opportunity.
“Wesley had his chances but he missed them and I took them,” he said. “He’s got his tour card and he’s going to be a dangerous player next year for all the players playing against him.”
Sherrock, 30, fought back from 2-1 down to force a decider against her English compatriot Meikle.
She then narrowly missed the bull to take out 170 in the fourth leg before left-hander Meikle held his nerve to hit double 18 for a 96 finish to seal a hard-fought success.
“I felt under pressure from the start and to come through feels unbelievable,” said Meikle.
“It’s an unbelievable prize to play Luke here on this stage. It’s the biggest stage of them all. I’m so happy.”
World number 81 Jeffrey de Graaf, who was born in the Netherlands but now represents Sweden, looked in trouble against Rashad Sweeting before prevailing 3-1.
Sweeting, who was making history as the first player from the Bahamas to compete in the tournament, took the first set, but De Graaf fought back to clinch a second-round meeting with two-time champion Gary Anderson
Germany’s Ricardo Pietreczko, ranked 34, beat China’s Xiaochen Zong 3-1 and will face Gian van Veen next.
