Japan's Ryusei Azemoto and Tomoya Goto lead 3-2. The Japanese got the match dart in the sixth leg, but the bulls missed. With a double 2 runs, the Australian team is in the final. In the decider, Japan missed three more match darts before Whitlock sealed Australia's victory with 87 runs.
The second group matches will be played on Friday afternoon. The losers of Thursday evening's games will play against the third-placed nation in the groups. The final series of group games will be held on Friday evening.
The 12 group winners advance to the knockout stage of the World Cup of Darts. They are joined by four leading nations, England (Luke Humphries and Michael Smith), Wales (Jonny Clayton and Jim Williams), Netherlands (Michael van Gerwen and Danny Knoppert) and Scotland (Peter Wright and Gary Anderson). All these four nations were directly admitted to the knockout stage of the tournament.
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