Nine-dart Luke Littler flies into Bahrain Darts Masters semi-finals as Michael van Gerwen sets up showdown with Michael Smith

The semi-final lineup at the 2024 Bahrain Darts Masters is complete. Luke Littler will face Gerwyn Price in one, with Michael Smith up against Michael van Gerwen in the other.

Luke Littler didn't take long to set the darting world alight once again following his World Darts Championship heroics, opening his quarter-final against Nathan Aspinall with a stunning nine-darter. In the process, the 16-year-old became the youngest ever player to strike perfection in a televised match, beating the previous record held by Michael van Gerwen.

Quite often, a player who hits a nine-darter early on in a match, can then struggle to focus for the remainder of the contest. There was none of that here from Littler though, with him even going six perfect darts into leg 8 before securing a 6-3 victory with a ruthless 116 checkout in the ninth leg. Littler will face Gerwyn Price in the semi-finals.

Closing out the quarter-final action, Michael van Gerwen started right where he left off yesterday, pinning 150 to take the opening leg. Both Van Gerwen and Rob Cross were ruthless on their doubles though, a perfect 100% for both both each with the score at 3-3.

Van Gerwen did miss a dart at bull in leg 7 for a 170, but cleaned up on his return to the board and as it turned out, that was the only miss on the outer ring in the entire game. Poor Rob Cross hardly put foot wrong but was a helpless 6-4 loser.