[1] Roland Scholten won the title and the tournament featured Phil Taylor's second televised nine-dart finish during his fourth round win over Matt Chapman.

Lowe, who had been missing several tournaments on the circuit at the time opted to withdraw from the event so Deller received a bye into round two.

Steve Evans against the Welshman Marshall James in the former 1997 world championship finalist by 5–4 in the preliminary round, Alex Roy showed the worst of his form and temperament against "Odd Job" James Barton, an electrical tester from Bradford.

Rod Harrington hadn't qualified for a televised tournament for a year and even though his darts were now not falling out of the board, he narrowly lost out to Bedfordshire's Derek Hunt 5-4.

Alan Green took out another known face, Leeds player Dave Smith 5-4 and 'The Horse' Reg Harding was also going home early, as was last year's finalist Shayne Burgess who lost 5-2 to Lee Rose.

Mick Manning lost 5-1 to Graeme Stoddart and Cliff Lazarenko stormed through to round two courtesy of a 5-1 win over Andrew Davies.

Best match of the first round was former BDO player Colin Monk (now full-time with the PDC) against Lee Palfreyman who was last seen on TV in the Las Vegas tournament two years ago.

A slimmed down Alan Warriner who had shed two stones in weight since his last TV appearance got off to a shaky start trailing 3-0 to Eddie Lovely.

"Fat Boy" Andy Keen took out Simon Whatley 5-2 and Mark Landers beat Tony Wilson 5-1.

"Uncle Fester" Ritchie Buckle lost out 5-4 to David Platt, who was a "9 dart" challenge qualifier for the 2003 world championship.

Tracking those who came through from the first round, "Odd Job" James Barton won again by beating Alex MacKay 5-4.

"Big" Cliff Lazarenko took out Graeme Stoddart 5-3 and Colin Monk had a slightly easier game this time beating Mark Holyoake 5-2.

The format was now best of 15 legs, so a bit more time to settle down and play for the seasoned dart players.

Friday's hero James Barton finally met his match against rising star Mark Walsh who went into round four with an 8-3 win.

Mardle also commented that he is now a full-time pro having quit his accounts job in the City of London.

Priestley commented that while playing on a 'minor' board that the noise and calling from the main stage was off putting.

Phil Taylor had a difficult match against Steve Maish, a player soaring up the PDC rankings list.

Form player before the tournament Colin Lloyd really struggled against 57-year-old Tom Kirby before muscling through 8-6 and Dutchman Jan van der Rassel won his third match taking out Mark Landers 8-4.

Alan Caves beat Dennis Smith 8-3 and 'The Natural' Les Fitton continued with his strong form to almost get the better of world finalist Kevin Painter.

Co-commentator Stuart Pyke noted that Taylor had achieved this without having played a competitive match for six months.

Ritchie Buckle was spotted singing along with the crowd and Colin Lloyd stopped his live TV interview to give Taylor a round of applause.

Taylor felt this one was easy because there was no special prize for a nine darter in the tournament so as he threw the final three darts he thought "just do it."

It was reported afterwards that tournament sponsors Budweiser were to present Taylor with 501 bottles of beer for his achievement!

Dennis Priestley continued at the UK Open with a return to impressive form really first shown at the World Championships at the turn of the year.

Apparently no love lost between them at the start of the match Phil Taylor seemed to begrudgingly shake Mardle's hand.

Apparently at the world championships Wayne Mardle was annoyed that Phil Taylor had brought in a pop star friend to their post match interview.

Roland Scholten went 3–1 up against Alan Warriner who had said that he'd changed his darts three times since the world championships.

Ultimately 8-7 to Part who said afterwards that he felt Andy Jenkins had control of the match and that he was "pretty lucky" to get through to the final.

However where in the past the Dutchman had caved in during the closing stages of a tournament, this time it was a different Roland Scholten.