Luke Littler

Luke Littler (born 21 January 2007) is an English professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. He is the current PDC World Youth Champion, and the current Bahrain Masters Champion, and is the youngest player to have won a match in the WDF World Darts Championship, and PDC World Darts Championship. He is also the youngest player to reach the PDC World Darts Championship final, aged 16 years, and the youngest ever player to hit a televised nine darter at the 2024 Bahrain Darts Masters aged 16.

Early life

Littler was born on 21 January 2007 in Runcorn and grew up in nearby Warrington. He began playing darts when he was 18 months old, after his father bought him a magnetic dart board from a pound shop. He scored his first 180 at the age of six and a nine-dart finish at the age of 13. When he was 10, he joined the St Helens Darts Academy and began playing in under-21 leagues.

Career

Early career

In 2019, Littler won the England Youth Grand Prix and the Isle of Man Masters youth competition, where he was able to defend his title in 2020. The 2020 JDC tour featured two titles from Littler, who is also signed to partners program "Elite1" organised by Target. Littler won the youth title at the England Open in September 2021 and finished second in the British Pentathlon.

In November 2021, Littler won his first seniors title at the Irish Open defeating Barry Copeland by 6–2 in legs, and thus qualified for the 2022 WDF World Darts Championship at the age of 14. At the end of November, during the JDC MVG Masters tournament, he hit a nine-dart finish.

2022

Littler won the JDC Super 16 in Milton Keynes at the end of January 2022, beating Eleanor Cairns in the final. In March 2022, he won the youth competition at the Isle Of Man Open and advanced to the finals of the Isle of Man Classic. At the 2022 WDF World Darts Championship, Littler started as a seeded player from second round and won his first match against Ben Hazel 3–2 in sets. He was then beaten 0–3 in sets by Richard Veenstra.

During the Welsh Open warm-up tournament, Littler hit a 121.86 average in one of his matches. A day later, he won another adult tournament in his career. In June 2022, he also won the Romanian Classic, beating Jelle Klaasen in the final by 5–1 in legs. At the 2022 WDF Europe Cup Youth, he won the gold medal in three men's competitions (singles, team and overall). His outstanding achievement was defeating Archie Self in the finals of the singles competition by 6–1 in legs. In the pair competition, together with Archie Self, lost in the semi-finals by 1–4 in legs to Thomas Banks, and Charlie Manby.

At the end of September 2022, Littler was selected by the national federation to participate in the 2022 WDF Europe Cup. On the second day of the tournament, he advanced to the quarter-finals of the pairs competition where he played together with James Hurrell. They lost to Sam Canket and Nick Kenny from Wales by 1–4 in legs. On the third day of the tournament, he advanced to the quarter-finals of the singles competition, lost to Andy Baetens by 4–5 in legs. In the team competition, he won the gold medal. In the points classification, as a representative of England, he also contributed to won a gold medal.

Littler won the JDC World Darts Championship in London at the end of December 2022, beating Harry Gregory by 5–0 in legs.

2023

In May 2023, Littler won the third series of the MODUS Super Series, defeating Jacob Taylor 4–1 in the final. In August 2023, he won the title for the second time by defeating Colin Osborne by 4 legs to 2 in the final.

In November 2023, Littler beat Gian van Veen in the 2023 PDC World Youth Championship final. The game ended 6–4.

2024

Littler made his debut at the 2024 PDC World Darts Championship qualifying as a result of his placement in the PDC Development Tour, where he whitewashed former world champion Christian Kist in the first round. He also broke two records, one for the highest average for a debutant at the World Darts Championship with a 106.12 and the other for being the youngest winner. In the second round, he defeated 2023 UK Open champion Andrew Gilding 3–1; in the third round, he defeated Matt Campbell 4–1. In the fourth round, he beat five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld 4–1 to enter his first PDC major quarter-final. Littler went on to beat Brendan Dolan 5–1 in the quarter-final before beating former world champion and 8th seed Rob Cross 6–2 in the semi-final. Littler lost 7–4 in the final against newly crowned world number one Luke Humphries. He is the youngest player to reach the PDC World Darts Championship final, aged 16 years and 347 days. Following the tournament, Littler was announced to be part of the 2024 Premier League Darts as one of the four chosen wildcards by the PDC.

Littler made his World Series of Darts debut at the second staging of the Bahrain Darts Masters, where he defeated Man Lok Leung 6–3 in the first round. In the quarter-finals of the event, he beat Nathan Aspinall 6–3, hitting his first televised nine-dart finish en route, becoming the youngest player to ever do so. In the semi-finals, Littler defeated Gerwyn Price 7–3 to be in his first World Series of Darts final on debut, which he won 8–5 against .

Littler made a consecutive world series final at the Dutch Darts Masters by defeating Dirk van Duijvenbode 6–2, Luke Humphries 6–5, and Gerwyn Price 7–4 before losing in a world series final rematch to Michael van Gerwen 8–6.

Personal life

Littler and his girlfriend Eloise Milburn received backlash for their age difference in January 2024, as he was 16 and she was 21. Milburn's mother defended her after she received abuse online and was called a "gold digger". Littler told ''The Daily Telegraph'' that he would "stick with ilburnwhether people like it or not".

Littler is a supporter of Manchester United FC and the Warrington Wolves.

Prior to the 2024 PDC World Darts Championship, Littler had won a total of £2,500 in prize money at ranking tournaments and was ranked 164th in the world. As runner-up in the 2024 Championship, he won £200,000. With his winnings he planned to pay for his friends to go with him to Blackpool or Alton Towers.

Littler announced on BBC Radio 1 that he gained inspiration for his walk-on song from his time with his dad at Wrestlemania 33. WWE later reached out on social media platform X, inviting him to a non-televised live event at the O2 Arena in April, where Littler accepted the invitation, saying "sounds good with me". Multi-time world champion John Cena posted a cryptic picture of Littler on his Instagram, honouring him after Littler admitted to being a fan.

World Championship results

WDF

* 2022: Third round (lost to Richard Veenstra 0–3) (sets)

PDC

* 2024: Runner-up (lost to Luke Humphries 4–7)

Career finals

PDC major finals: 1 (1 runner–up)

PDC world series finals: 2 (1 title, 1 runner-up)

Nine-dart finishes

Performance timeline

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Littler, Luke
2007 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Runcorn
Sportspeople from Warrington
English darts players
British Darts Organisation players
Professional Darts Corporation current tour card holders
World Series of Darts winners
Darts players who have thrown televised nine-dart games