WITH q AS
(
SELECT TOP 1 *
FROM mytable
/* You may want to add ORDER BY here */
)
DELETE
FROM q
Note that
DELETE TOP (1)
FROM mytable
will also work, but, as stated in the documentation:
The rows referenced in the TOP expression used with INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE are not arranged in any order.
Therefore, it's better to use WITH
and an ORDER BY
clause, which will let you specify more exactly which row you consider to be the first.