Category: Darts

• Teenager beats Luke Humphries in epic final to regain crown

• ‘I was sat at home saying I don’t want to do it anymore’

A tearful Luke Littler admitted his Premier League struggles and the boos from the crowd had made him consider walking away before he beat his great rival Luke Humphries in an epic final at the O₂ Arena in London. Littler won a nail-biting last-leg decider to regain his crown and pocket a £350,000 jackpot.

The world No 1 was subjected to more pantomime booing and whistling from the 16,000 crowd. But the 19-year-old shrugged off the jeers that have followed him around recently to reclaim the title he lost to Humphries in last year’s final.

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• Greaves triumphs at Players Championship

• ‘I never thought I’d win one of these. Never’

Beau Greaves has made darts history by becoming the first woman to win a PDC ranking title. The 22-year-old beat three former world champions at the Players Championship in Milton Keynes, seeing off Rob Cross, Gary Anderson and Michael Smith.

Greaves completed a nailbiting 8-7 victory over Smith in the final with a stunning 142 checkout. She said: “I can’t believe it. I was up a fair few legs and I started to think about it. It caught up with me.

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• Van Leuven can no longer play in PDC Women’s Series

• DRA report determines darts is ‘gender-affected sport’

Noa-Lynn van Leuven will be banned from competing in any of the Professional Darts Corporation’s women-only events with immediate effect after a ruling from the sport’s regulatory body stated only biological females can now compete in women’s tournaments.

The Darts Regulation Authority (DRA) has ruled that transgender women will no longer be permitted to compete in women’s events. Van Leuven can therefore no longer participate in the PDC Women’s Series, where she has won six titles, and will be prevented from also competing in the Women’s World Matchplay, which she was on course to qualify for this summer.

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• World champion hosts ‘Three Lions darts championship’

• Littler: ‘It was a dream as a football fan to come here’

Luke Littler was happy to teach the England squad how to hit the target as he hosted a darts tournament at St George’s Park.

The double world champion visited Thomas Tuchel’s group as they build up towards upcoming pre-World Cup friendlies with Uruguay and Japan.

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• Teenager files application to prevent fake products

• Littler defies boos to fight back and defeat Gerwyn Price

Luke Littler has made an application with the Intellectual Property Office to trademark his face. It is understood the application will prevent fake products powered by AI using his picture without permission and breaking copyright laws.

The teenager, who has won back-to-back World Darts Championship titles, is highly marketable and his face appears on a wide variety of branded products, from his own dart board to video games and bags of nuts. Littler has already trademarked his “the Nuke” nickname in the US.

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Luke Littler produced an astounding display to regain his world title, winning 21 of the last 24 legs

I was just afraid of losing. Afraid of what people might think of me. What if I lose this game? What are my parents going to think of me? And that’s when it started. Dartitis, with me, was just being afraid to fail. And that was because I wasn’t confident in myself, not in darts, not in my personal life.

This piece, on Gian van Veen’s struggle with dartitis among other things, is well worth a read. As somebody who has had a form of writer’s block for almost a decade, I have immense admiration for Van Veen’s ability to overcome something even more debilitating.

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• Scot chasing third world title, 10 years after last triumph

• Searle talks about playing through eye condition on oche

Gary Anderson returned to the World Championship semi-finals for the first time in four years after ending Justin Hood’s dream debut run.

The 55-year-old is enjoying a renaissance and is now just two wins away from lifting a third world title, 10 years after his last. If he can do so, he would become the oldest player to lift the PDC world title and join Michael van Gerwen in second place in the all-time list of champions.

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Gian van Veen stunned Luke Humphries with a 5-1 victory after Luke Littler whitewashed Krzysztof Ratajski

*Searle (1) 2-0 (0) Clayton Another break of throw for Searle! Clayton missed a dart at D16, a terrible effort, and Searle took out 116 on tops with the air of a man strolling to the paper shop on a brisk winter morning. His finishing has been outrageous.

Searle (1) 1-0 (0) Clayton*

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• Debutant continues stunning run to reach quarter-finals

• ‘I’m not used to it. I usually get hate messages. It’s mad’

The underdog Justin Hood reeled off a record 11 consecutive doubles en route to a stunning 4-0 win over Josh Rock in the last 16 of the PDC World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace.

The 32-year-old debutant continued his dazzling run in the tournament and missed his first double when he threw for the match at 2-0 up in the fourth set. He stepped back to take out the match on a 119 finish in the following leg, guaranteeing a career-best payday of at least £100,000 and taking him closer to his dream of opening a Chinese restaurant.

This report will update later on Tuesday

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• PDC hot favourite was jeered during quarter-final victory

• ‘It definitely fuelled me up and it made me play better’

Luke Littler admits he “lost” his head when reacting to the hostile crowd during his fourth-round World Championship win over Rob Cross and still has some learning to do.

The 18-year-old was booed and jeered as he beat Cross 4-2 to book his place in the quarter-finals at Alexandra Palace. Littler let the emotion out after throwing the winning darts, running around the stage gesturing to the crowd, who had wanted Cross to win.

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• Toby, 13, was in crowd when fourth seed lost

• ‘He has had hate from some trolls online’

Stephen Bunting has revealed his 13-year-old son has been a victim of online abuse. Toby Bunting was in the crowd at Alexandra Palace as his father, the fourth seed, was knocked out in the third round of the PDC World Championship by James Hurrell.

Bunting said in a post on X that his family have been hurt by the social media trolling. “Hi guys, sorry I’ve had a few days away from my socials, but I just needed a small bit of time after my game to recover and rest,” the 40-year-old wrote.

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