23/07/2024

Luke Littler back on the board locally after quick elimination at World Matchplay with win at £20 entry fee tournament

For Luke Littler, the World Matchplay turned out to be a big disappointment. The 17-year-old, who won the Premier League Darts earlier this year, went down immediately in the opening round against Michael van Gerwen.

Littler has already had a great first six months at the PDC. After his stellar performance at the World Darts Championship, where he lost to Luke Humphries in the final, he has quickly worked his way up to become one of the very best players in the world.

He won a Players Championship, two tournaments of the European Tour, two tournaments of the World Series of Darts and the crowning glory was of course his final victory in the Premier League Darts, where he took revenge for his defeat in the World Championship final. Meanwhile, he has also moved up to 24th in the world rankings and it seems a matter of time before he settles into the top three.

PDC Order of Merit: Van Gerwen loses second spot to Smith, Humphries lonely at the top and Wright loses top-10 spot

But so at the World Matchplay things went awry after a defeat against Van Gerwen in the first round. Littler did not dwell too long on the defeat, however, and was active last weekend at the Cheshire Open, a local tournament in England. He only had to pay a 20-pound entry fee and ended up winning a sloppy 1,000 pounds. "Some weekend," Littler wrote on Instagram. "Winning the warm up men's event and the Cheshire Open men's singles, good see all my fellow team-mates from Cheshire."

Luke Littler back on the board locally after quick elimination at World Matchplay with win at £20 entry fee tournament — Luke Littler in action last week at the World Matchplay

Fans joked on social media about Littler's presence at the tournament, with one posting, "If Luke Littler turned up around you local darts tournament, you'd go home." Another praised the 17-year-old for keeping both feet on the ground. "Love that's you've still got time to play grassroots stuff," a fan wrote.

Albeit criticism has been levied at media outlets with Sky Sports reporting it as breaking news on their news channel and also initially calling it a poker tournament on socials. While TalkSport were criticised for clickbait stories in which they said it meant more to Littler than Humphries' World Matchplay win and that he earned 200x less for the title.

This shines a light on the incessant reporting on Littler and also saw a lot repost the quotes from Dimitri van den Bergh when he said that Humphries lives in Littler's shadow that on the day after the World Matchplay, it isn't solely about 'Cool Hand Luke'.