IN final The two absolute best met at the World Championships players tournament – 17-year-old Luke Littler and Michael van Gerwen, who is more than twice his age. The former wowed the world last year and became a global darts star when he reached the final of the world championship and lost to Luke Humphries. In turn, the Dutchman has been an absolute world leader for years – champion in 2014, 2017 and 2019, as well as finalist in 2020 and 2023.
Luke Littler is the world darts champion. The 17-year-old prodigy outplayed the former champion
Of course, before the final, both players had five wins and both lost eight sets to their rivals. Littler eliminated several stars along the way – Ryan Joyce, Nathan Aspinall and Stephen Bunting, and in match with Ryan Meikle he scored a record set in history with an average of 140.91 points. Van Gerwen, in turn, had a particularly difficult task in the semi-final, but there he defeated the great Chris Dobey 6:1.
The beginning of the fight belonged to the younger player, who took the lead 2-0. Van Gerwen made mistakes on doubles, but still managed to get one leg. It wasn't enough and Littler won the first set with a score of 3-1. In the second game, van Gerwen again threw terribly at the end of the leg, which resulted in a 0-3 defeat and a very difficult situation in the final match. To this point, both players had accumulated six 180-point shots.
In the third set, van Gerwen started by winning a leg, but then he missed again, and Littler took advantage of the chances without any major problems. The Englishman won the next three games and won the game 3:1, and in match it was already 3-0. The fourth set started with two more legs by Littler and one by van Gerwen. The three-time world champion had three darts to equalize, but he wasted them in dramatic style and lost 1:3 after another double ten by the younger player.
Van Gerwen started the fifth set with a wasted seventh shuttle at double 20, but opened the scoring with a 1-0 lead. Littler responded with one leg, but the world number three did not let the good moment slip out of his hands this time. A summary of his return to games was to close the third leg with a count of 132 and take the first set at 1-4 in the match. The Dutchman also fought in the sixth game, in which the score was 2-2, but it was Littler who withstood the pressure and took the lead 5-1.
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The seventh game was evenly matched again, and the players won two games each, taking advantage of their opponents' mistakes. Van Gerwen started the next game with four triple 20s, and although Littler also responded with the same series, the three-time world champion closed the game with a double 20 and brought the score to 2-5.
However, the “darts prodigy” was still closer to triumph, and took the next step after winning the first two legs of the eighth set. The much older Dutchman could have fought back, but he wasted a dart on a double and lost 0-3. This meant that the 17-year-old was just one set away from becoming world champion. However, the three-time winner did not want to give up easily and won the first leg of the next game. Littler equalized the score 1-1 a moment later, but “MVG” quite easily won two more points and took the third set in the final match.
In the tenth set, the player from Manchester started by keeping the counter, and a moment later he broke his older colleague very easily. Only a leg separated him from the final triumph. On the first try, Littler missed the match shuttle, but on the second attempt he hit the second shuttle and officially became world champion, winning the match 7-3.
Luke Littler – Michael van Gerwen 7-3 (3:1, 3:0, 3:1, 3:1, 1:3, 3:2, 2:3, 3:0, 1:3, 3:0)