Littler ‘ticks off’ first Players Championship win

Luke Littler, the reigning world number one, defeated fellow Englishman Nathan Aspinall 11-8 to win his first Players Championship Finals title in Minehead.

Just one week after winning the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton and topping the world rankings for the first time, the 18-year-old added a new trophy to his collection after being defeated by Luke Humphries in last year’s final.

Littler held on in the decider and scored 88 on the final run to claim his sixth televised title, reducing the deficit to 9-8 at one point by winning four of the five legs.

After the win, Littler told ITV, “I’m very proud to have this one crossed off the list; there are only two more left.”

The European Championship and the World Masters are the only major awards Littler has currently lost.

Even though Littler’s opponent threw seven maximum 180s, one more than “The Nuke,” Littler averaged 103.33 to Aspinall’s 93.64 in Sunday’s final.

Littler claimed that it was difficult to make it to the final.

Aspinall has been playing really well for a while, so I had to dig in at the end. I’m glad I succeeded in my goal.

I used to be myself, but now I’m starting to lose some of my emotion. Next month, I’m anticipating the big one.

Before falling to top seed and former world champion Gerwyn Price of Wales 11-8, Littler defeated Chris Dobey 10-5 in the final earlier in the day to claim his place in the final.

By prevailing 11-2 against Jermaine Wattimena of the Netherlands, Aspinall had already advanced to his seventh major final.

In the same matchup, Gian van Veen defeated England’s Beau Greaves 6-3 in the final of the Minehead World Youth Championship.

Greaves became the first woman to reach the World Youth final after posting a heart-felt 6-5 victory over reigning champion Luke Littler last month.

However, Van Veen, the defending champion, held off the 21-year-old Doncaster, who came back to almost level the tie at 4-3.

Van Veen, who lost to Poland’s Krzysztof Ratajski in the second round of the Players Championship, held his resolve to win the youth title after Dimitri van den Bergh won it for the first time in 2018.