Price wins while Littler booed in Liverpool loss

While Luke Littler was booed in agonizing defeat by Michael van Gerwen, Gerwyn Price won night 12 of the Premier League Darts in Liverpool.

With a 6-4 victory over Luke Humphries in the final, Welshman Price moved up to third place in the table.

After victories in Dublin and Nottingham, the 40-year-old won his third nightly victory of the campaign.

Price, the 2021 world champion, had a 104.43 on a night where he had won five games before going top of the standings to top the night’s three.

Littler blew a 4-0 lead in the quarter-final defeat to Van Gerwen, who had once more been looking for a fifth nightly win of the year.

Littler, a Manchester United fan, reportedly shrugged off the Liverpool crowd after winning last year, but he did so in this match.

After missing two match darts for a 5-1 lead and two match darts for a 5-3 exit, the 18-year-old appeared emotional as he left the stage.

Littler, the defending Premier League champion and a former world champion, is still at the top of the eight-player leaderboard and on track to advance to the end-of-season play-offs on May 29.

Local hero Stephen Bunting, who had been defeated by Rob Cross in the final eight, was also given an early exit in Liverpool on his homecoming.

Van Gerwen, a Dutchman, lost to Humphries 6-4, while Price, a Dutchman, lost to Cross 6-2, to lose to Van Gerwen.

A week after Price claimed his darts were “blowing everywhere,” in cool Rotterdam conditions, Price had a happier evening.

Because of his support for United, Littler had previously posted on social media that he had expected to receive the message “bring on the boos Liverpool.”

He resisted that and fought off Van Gerwen, who has been playing for Van Gerwen seven times, to take the lead. He averaged more than 20 points per visit, despite that.

The teenager made a dart at bullseye to cut the deficit to 4-3, which Van Gerwen did after missing the teenager’s dart for 5-0.

Littler nodded to the crowd before gesturing to them to calm down before moving a leg away with a stunning 160.

In leg nine, he missed match darts at tops and doubles, but Van Gerwen was able to recover that and the following two legs to win 6-5.

In the opening quarter-final, Humphries defeated Nathan Aspinall 6-3, which Littler defeated in last year’s grand final.

He controlled Aspinall, who had an average of 104.03 and was 75% on the double, and he had an average of 113.5% of his checkouts taken out by him.

Bottom-of-the-table Bunting had another difficult night as he was brushed aside in a dominant victory for 2018 world champion Cross.

Final

Gerwyn Price 4 – 6 Luke Humphries

Semi-finals

Michael van Gerwen 6-4 Luke Humphries

Gerwyn Price vs. Rob Cross

Quarter-finals

Nathan Aspinall 6-3 Luke Humphries

Luke Littler 6-5 Luke van Gerwen

Rob Cross 6-1 Stephen Bunting

Premier League Darts is played in 16 league starts, with quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals on each night.

In the quarter-finals in weeks one through seven and nine through fifteen, with the eight and sixteen fixtures being eliminated from the table, each of the eight players is guaranteed to face the other seven. On the final league-stage night, Sheffield will play host to fourth-and-fifth place teams, with potential playoff spots also in the cards.

Players are awarded two points for each quarter-final victory, five for each semi-final victory, and five for each night’s victory.

In a best-of-19-leg competition, the top four players will advance to the play-off night on May 23 at London’s O2 Arena, with first facing first and second facing third. The best leg of the 21 legs is the final.

Birmingham, May 1st,