"It'll definitely help, winning anything would help towards the Worlds" - Grand Slam victory a potential omen for Luke Littler heading into World Darts Championship

A lot has changed for Luke Littler over the last twelve months. This time last year, 'The Nuke' was preparing for his PDC World Darts Championship debut relatively unknown to casual fans of the sport. For the 2025 edition though, the 17-year-old heads to the Alexandra Palace as the bookies pre-tournament favourite and the biggest name in the sport.

In truth though, the rapid rise of Luke Littler started just a little before the 2024 PDC World Darts Championship. In Minehead a few weeks earlier, the then-16-year-old defeated Gian van Veen to take the World Youth Championship title. "That [the World Youth Final] was the one that really got it for me," Littler reflects to Sky Sports. "Then obviously went on to the Worlds and done good things, and then got invited to World Series, Premier League, and then played on the Pro Tour and the European Tour."

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After reaching the world final, losing out to Luke Humphries, Littler was granted a first Premier League Darts call-up in early 2024. After topping the table in his debut season, 'The Nuke' gained some revenge over Humphries and defeated 'Cool Hand Luke' in the final of the playoffs, hitting a stunning nine-darter en route to the biggest title of his career to that point.

"It was definitely good to win, but obviously early on I was, I wouldn't say struggling, but I was always fourth, fifth without a nightly win, so I was always picking up points," he recalls of that first Premier League Darts season. "But when I won in Belfast, I really thought I could win a lot more, obviously winning Manchester, Liverpool and then Aberdeen. But hitting that winning double against Luke meant a lot."

Littler lifted the Premier League Darts title in his debut season earlier this year

Can Littler now go one step further at the Alexandra Palace? It seems recent history is on his side at least as the last two world champions (Michael Smith 2023, Luke Humphries 2024 ed.) have both headed to North London on the back of being crowned Grand Slam of Darts winner. "It'll definitely help, winning anything would help towards the Worlds," Littler says. "It is just practice up until the Worlds and the Championships."

It's likely though, that few players will be able to count on as much support from the Ally Pally crowd as Littler. "Obviously it means a lot, when I walk on they sing 'There's only one Luke Littler'," he admits. "Hopefully 'You've got school in the morning' chant comes back this year, I'd like to hear that again! It definitely helps me a lot and it'll get me up for it even more, just to win for them, but obviously it's a win for myself."

In his opening game, Littler is set to face off against the winner of the Ryan Meikle and Fallon Sherrock tie in round one. "You've always got to be on your A game, but obviously as the game goes on you know that if they're playing well you've got to step up and you've got to compete against them," Littler assesses. "We'll just see how it goes, obviously you can only beat what's in front of you so you've just got to look at your next opponent in the Worlds. It will be one game before the Christmas break so be fully focused for that, have Christmas off and then we'll travel back down hopefully another long December, start of January in London."

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