"It does annoy me that people pick up on that" - Stephen Bunting hits back at claims he showed too much respect to Luke Littler during World Championship semi-final

Stephen Bunting has been one of the PDC's most inform players for over a year now. At the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship, 'The Bullet' lost out in the semi-finals to Luke Littler, but had since bounced back by taking the title at the Bahrain Darts Masters.

Bunting will also be in action this weekend on the World Series of Darts at the Dutch Darts Masters in Den Bosch. "Hopefully I'll have another good run, but it's a pleasure to be in all the World Series events at the minute," Bunting tells Oche180. "It's important, going into the Premier League, that I'm beating those players I'm going to be playing in the Premier League. Just to sort of stamp my authority before we've even started."

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"It's always important to make sure I play to my best, no matter what tournament we're in. And obviously, I've said it many time now, but Stephen Bunting 2.0 is a lot stronger than what Stephen Bunting 1.0 was," he continues. "I'm a lot more consistent these days and I think the other players know that. I've got that aura around me where they don't want to play me. It's a great feeling to have."

Stephen Bunting won the Bahrain Darts Masters last week

During his rise back to darting prominence, Bunting has become a real crowd favourite. "The fans are a massive part of what we do and getting them involved, the Bunting mental chants, Walking in a Bunting Wonderland, it really does help when you're up on that stage on your own," he says. "It can be such a lonely place, but they get me through so many games."

As mentioned, at the recent PDC World Darts Championship, Bunting went down 6-1 in the semifinals against Luke Littler. Afterwards, he was criticized for showing too much respect for his opponent. For example, during the match he regularly gave a fist to Littler on a good finish, something Bunting's good friend Dave Chisnall picked up when he said: "I’m not one for gamesmanship and you won’t hear me slagging folk off, but I did think the fist bumps after every set was a bit weird."

"He's a 17-year-old lad who's got the world at his feet, and he's still learning the game. I'm very respectful for what he's doing for our game and I hope he continues for a lot of years, because he's a lot more money to our sport. On another note, I've known him personally since he was a little kid," Bunting responds to the criticism. "It does annoy me a bit that people pick up upon that sort of thing, that shows how well I’m playing, that they have got to pick up on a fist-bump rather than a bad performance.”

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