Mervyn King (10/1 second favourite – Players’ Championship Outright) fought back from the brink of defeat to secure a remarkable victory over world number three James Wade at the totesport.com Players’ Championship in round one – then declared “I don’t care who I play next”.

‘The King’ was trailing 5-2 and poised for an early exit at the Circus Tavern when he reeled off four successive legs to set up a second-round showdown with Jelle Klassen (King 4/7 Klassen 5/4 – match betting) of the Netherlands.

Wade, a semi-finalist at the event in 2009, looked to have wrapped up a comfortable win when he edged ahead at the interval with a 65 checkout and then raced into a three-leg cushion.

However, King broke Wade’s throw twice to take the match into a sudden-death leg, which he took with a nerveless 14-darter.

King, who averaged 102.18, said: “I felt comfortable, he shouldn’t have been 5-2 up. I should have been 4-1 up at the break in my mind.

“I was thinking ‘what is going on here’ but I dug in and thankfully James missed a couple of shots to let me back in.”

He added: “I don’t care who I play next, if I go up there and play as well as I can do I’ll win, if I don’t it does get a bit scary sometimes.”

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