"Luke Littler's performing the best and he's just been a bit unlucky" - Modest Luke Humphries insists he's not the man to beat despite perfect start to Premier League Darts

Luke Humphries is off to an excellent start in the 2025 Premier League Darts. 'Cool Hand Luke' captured the weekly title in Belfast on night one by beating Chris Dobey 6-1 in the final. As such, Humphries, of course, is also the first leader in the standings.

Humphries successively defeated Nathan Aspinall, Michael van Gerwen and Chris Dobey to take the weekly title. “I thought I played pretty well tonight,” reflected Humphries afterwards. “I was very fortunate against Michael. It’s not usually like him to miss that amount of doubles, and then I finished really well against Chris. I’m really happy to make a good start. My goal was just to get into the top four – that’s all that matters."

“Whether you finish first, second, third or fourth, it does not matter, as long as you’re in that top four, so it’s a great start for myself, following on from last weekend," continues the world number one. “I am always striving to be better, because there are so many great players in this tournament, and I think this is the toughest Premier League line-up for a very long time.”

The Premier League Darts is one of the few titles missing from Humphries' ever growing list of honours. In his quest to end that wait this year, Humphries sees one rival in particular giving him difficulty. "Luke Littler's performing the best and he's just been a bit unlucky - he has a target on his back being the world champion," Humphries explains, noting how the recently crowned world champion lost out to Michael van Gerwen in Belfast despite averaging around 114. "Everyone wants to beat him and this will happen, you know this will happen over his career but you know, for me, I always know that I can compete with the best and you don't get to number one for nothing."

"I'm looking forward to playing him [Littler] in many, many games this year and I'm going to have to be at my utmost best, like Michael played tonight, absolutely brilliant," Humphries adds. "That was a fantastic game. It's going to be a tough one to match that as a better game the whole 16 weeks but I thought it was one of the best games in the Premier League I've ever seen. So he [Littler] is playing well, he's just a bit unlucky at the moment but he does drive you on. He makes you want to be better and he's a fantastic talent, he's just going to be so great over the next 20 years and it's up to me to get better to try and challenge him."