Peter Hinkley took a 3–1 win over Nick Gedney. The match between Hankey and debutant Greatbatch was interrupted by the first streaker in darts history. It caused a twenty-minute stoppage to allow security to remove her from the Lakeside Country Club. Hankey achieved six maximum scores and averaged 31.34 per dart thrown to whitewash Greatbatch 3–0. Both Hankey and Greatbatch spoke of their annoyance over the interruption after the match. Of the other four first round matches, all of them ended in 3–0 whitewashes. Sixth seed Kevin Painter produced three maximum checkouts to defeat Andy Jenkins, 1996 quarter-finalist Matt Clark beat qualifier Alker, and world number 22 Tony David lost to the third seed Andy Fordham, who had back pain. The final match saw Bob Taylor lose to Wayne Jones.