Beats the big boys: darts prodigy Luke Littler is still unstoppable

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Luke Littler’s meteoric rise continues. The then 16-year-old’s star rose at the last World Championships, which always take place around the turn of the year in the legendary Alexandra Palace in London. In his first participation, the reigning junior world champion sensationally reached the final, where he was narrowly defeated by tournament favorite and since world champion Luke Humphries (28).

In the two weeks in the “Ally Pally”, the youngster not only improved from 164th place in the world rankings to 31st place. His popularity on social media also skyrocketed: before the tournament, around 4,000 people followed him on Instagram. The day after the final there were 725,000, today there are already more than 1.1 million.

The first tournament victory immediately followed

Things moved quickly in January. On January 4, Littler was called up to the Premier League. This is explosive because four of the eight participants were freely selected. Only the four best placed in the “Order of Merit”, as the world rankings in darts are called, are guaranteed a place in the competition. Apparently the organizers also want to surf the Littler wave. The competition is played from February to May.

But even before the start of the Premier League, the youngster continued his success. At the first major tournament of the year, Luke “The Nuke” (the atomic bomb), as he is known on the darts tour, immediately won his first professional title. And in inimitable fashion: from the quarter-finals onwards, Littler defeated Nathan Aspinall (32) and former world champions Gerwyn Price (38) and Michael van Gerwen (34) – world numbers four, five and two respectively. He also threw a 9-darter live on TV for the first time. This involves nine perfectly placed darts in a row to win a so-called “leg”, the most important counting unit in darts.

Littler narrowly missed the January double at the second top tournament of the year: after victories over World Cup final opponents Humphries and again Price, he narrowly lost to van Gerwen in the new final (6:8 legs).

Third place in the Premier League rankings

From the start, Littler justifies his nomination. At the start he failed after another victory at Humphries against eventual winner Michael Smith (33). On the second matchday he achieved his third victory in a row against Humphries – he impressively took revenge for the defeat in the World Cup final. In the final he again narrowly had to admit defeat against van Gerwen (5:6 legs).

Source : Blick