"She is the female Luke Littler" - Lisa Ashton directs high praise to Beau Greaves as she predicts big future in darts

Lisa Ashton will make her fifth appearance at the PDC World Darts Championship this year. The 55-year-old Women's World Matchplay champion gets to face former World Champion Michael Smith in the first round, and she hopes to finally win her first match on stage at Alexandra Palace.

In her previous four participations, she failed to get past the first round once. In 2019, she lost 3-1 to Dutchman Jan Dekker on her debut, then lost 3-2 to Adam Hunt two years later. In 2022, she went down 3-0 against Ron Meulenkamp, and a year later she narrowly lost 3-2 to "The Barber" Ryan Meikle.

'The Lancashire Rose' is one of the pioneers of women's darts and managed to become women's world champion a total of five times. So this month she also hopes to finally record her first win at the PDC World Championship. Ashton managed to qualify for the most important tournament of the year by winning the Women's World Matchplay this summer. She did so by defeating both Beau Greaves and Fallon Sherrock. In doing so, she showed she can still compete with the best ladies in the sport.

Now she hopes to write a new chapter in her career by beating the 2023 world champion Michael Smith in Ally Pally. In doing so, she hopes the crowd can push her to play even better. "It is so lovely to hear that crowd shouting your name and that and then it's like they said, when you say you have a bad score and you feel a bit, you hear that crowd and that's totally gone."

"They lift you straight back up and you're just straight on it. So it's brilliant to have that support because they do help you when you need it and they boost you back up," she continued. "It's hard to explain, because it's excitement, adrenaline, the whole lot, but it's brilliant. I keep saying it, but fingers crossed (I can get the win). I am happy to just get there because it's not like I'm a spring chicken, I'm one of the older ladies who are playing in it, but I'm happy I can still qualify. So to me, that is a major thing. So I will give it my 100 per cent and hopefully I can get that win one of these days."

Ashton has been on the women's circuit for years, with which she has seen plenty of young talent emerge. It didn't take her long to see how good Beau Greaves is. She is therefore not surprised that the 21-year-old is following in her footsteps by having won her PDC Tour Card. "When I had my Tour card, I said the next one would be Beau Greaves," Ashton said.

"She's got levels. That girl has got levels and levels, and to do it is fantastic. She's still young and she's proven this is where she should be at the level she is doing now. And it's nice to see she's taken it and she's pushing herself further. I know we've still got in the women's series and I'd love to play her, but it's nice to just see what damage she's going to do over there now."

But what did Ashton notice that Greaves could become a great one? "It is just the way she is. The way she controls herself and her throw is just so natural," she explained. "There is nothing really that can go wrong with it. I know she's had dartitis before, and she has struggled with it, and she's battled through it. But you can just see the levels of throw and the way she throws and there's not much wrong with it. You can tell when you know that's special. She is the female Luke Littler of what we've got in the women's darts. And when you get that ability, it's just a one-off, and that girl's got it."