World champion Michael van Gerwen and new partner Jermaine Wattimena comfortably beat Spain's Cristo Reyes and Toni Alcinas in the best-of-nine-legs round-of-32 match at the German city's Barclaycard Arena.

Victory sets up a last-16 encounter with Poland's Krzysztof Ratajski and Tytus Kanik, who proved too strong for Czech Republic's Karel Sedláček and Pavel Jirkal in a 5-2 victory.

Also through to the second round are top seeds Rob Cross and Michael Smith of England following their 5-1 triumph over the Philippines' Lourence Ilagan and Noel Malicdem.

Next up for them are due to be the Republic of Ireland's William O'Connor and Steve Lennon, who saw off Greece's John Michael and Veniamin Symeonidis 5-1.

Fifth seeds Australia won a shootout against Finland to secure their last-16 spot, with Simon Whitlock and Kyle Anderson claiming a 5-4 win over Finland's Marko Kantele and Kim Viljanen with a 14-darter in the deciding leg.

Standing between them and a place in the quarter-finals are Canada's Dawson Murschell and Jim Long, 5-3 victors at the expense of Italy's Andrea Micheletti and Stefano Tomassetti in a high-quality encounter.

The other second-round tie determined today pits eighth-seeded Austrians Mensur Suljovic and Zoran Lerchbacher against the United States' Darin Young and Chuck Puleo.

Suljovic and Lerchbacher mounted a fightback from 3-1 down against Russia's Boris Koltsov and Aleksei Kadochnikov to secure a 5-3 success, while Young and Puleo defeated China's Xiaochen Zong and Yuanjun Liu 5-1.

The eight second-round matches scheduled for tomorrow comprise two best-of-seven legs singles matches.