Hang Out The Bunting For Stephen's First Bahrain Title

Hang Out The Bunting For Stephen's First Bahrain Title Going into this month's Bahrain Masters, Luke 'The Nuke' Littler was the name on most people's lips after the 17 year old lifted his first senior trophy in the competition last year, but at this time of asking he could not retain his title and the headlines instead went to Stephen Bunting who picked up his own maiden World Series title.

The 39 year old knocked out Chris Dobey in the quarter finals of the tournament, and then he went one better by beating current world number one Luke Humphries in the semi finals. That set up an intriguing encounter with Gerwyn Price in the final, but Bunting held his nerve to take himself to a pretty comfortable 8-4 victory over the 39 year old Welshman, and for those who like a flutter on their arrows, betting offers UK would have had some interesting odds on him being the eventual winner.

Price would have been considered by many in the build up to the final to have been the favourite for the title this year, as he had caused his own shock to the predictions by booting out newly crowned world champion Littler 6-2 in the last eight stage as the highly talented youngster just could not match his performance levels in the clash, as he averaged a tournament record 115.31.

Moving back to Bunting, he was actually competing in Bahrain for the first time in his career, so that just makes his victory all the more sweeter when looked at from his point of view, and just a greater story from a darts media perspective. There would have been those that felt Bunting may have been a dark horse on his first entry to the tournament as he has performed well lately and grown his own world ranking to a career high of five and he was more than happy to talk about all the 'hard work' that had gone in over the years behind the scenes to make that happen.

 Advertorial: Citing the fact that he knew he was now far more consistent in his performance levels, he was finally in the position where he was entering tournaments and stepping up to the oche with a real belief and confidence that he would be walking away as the winner. For him that had all been down to the psychology and the hypnotherapy sessions that he had taken part in and it has all resulted in him playing his best version of darts, and he was now getting the rewards for it.

Hindsight and history will show that his first televised PDC title at the Cazoo Masters back in February 2024 was a likely turning point for him as he has continued to impress ever since then. It will be interesting to see what he can do in the remainder of the 2025 calendar as he is now a name that many in the world of darts are seriously looking out for.