Last season’s finalists Littler and Humphries start favourites but the field of potential winners is wider than ever
The double two. At the end of the seventh set. Luke Littler’s on 58, two darts left, but he thinks he’s on 68. He hits the treble-18. Realises what he’s done. Steps away. Steps up. Misses the double two that would have put him 5-2 up in the world championship final. Loses the next five sets in a row. In his idler moments Littler sometimes watches this match back, and this is the point at which he has to turn off.
There’s a good case for anointing that double two as the most famous missed dart in the history of the sport. It’s either that or Michael van Gerwen’s double-12 after 17 perfect darts in the 2014 semi-final. The point is that nowhere else does so much taper down to so little, so quickly. Over the first year of his professional career Littler has thrown – at a rough estimate – about 30,000 darts in competition. Most are instantly forgotten. But some you remember.
The rise of the 16-year-old prodigy was the story of last season’s world championships, perhaps one of the great underdog stories in sport. As Littler macheted his way through a kind draw, a wave of hype and hope began to gather at his feet, hoisting him to some of the most deific levels of darting artistry ever dreamed. There were tall tales and midnight kebabs, songs and memes, VIP selfies and bleary-eyed slots on breakfast television. Darts was cool. Darts was in. Darts was the story. And yet, as a result of that missed double two, it is a story that remains incomplete.
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