Luke Littler impressively defended the darts throne in London and stormed to the world title for the second time at the age of 18. The young Englishman dominated the final in a 7-1 win against the hopeless European champion Gian van Veen from the Netherlands and was the first professional to successfully defend the World Cup title since Scotland’s Gary Anderson ten years ago.
Huge lead in the rankings
In addition to the record prize money of one million pounds (around 1.15 million euros), which was offered for the first time, Littler will receive the Sid Waddell Trophy, which weighs over 20 kilograms, which he had already won last year as a minor.
Littler played an outstanding tournament at Alexandra Palace and was never really challenged in the three weeks of the World Cup. After his renewed triumph on the world’s largest darts stage, he leads the world rankings with a gigantic lead of more than 1.5 million pounds.
Van Veen, who had never won a game at Ally Pally before this World Cup, can still look forward to his year and his World Cup tournament with satisfaction. The 23-year-old not only won the European Championship title, but also replaced compatriot Michael van Gerwen as number one in the Netherlands with his strong run in London. This had led the national rankings for 13 years.
Van Veen is overrun after the first set
In a World Cup final against Littler, both of them had a similar fate – they had no real chance of winning. A year ago, Van Gerwen lost 3:7 after quickly falling behind with 0:4 sets. Van Veen initially took a 1-0 lead, but after that Littler turned up the heat and gave his young opponent no chance at all.
“My biggest advantage is that I’m already world champion. I’m going into the final with great self-confidence,” announced Littler – and kept his word. The young star hit the triples brilliantly, hit the doubles brilliantly and secured the early 2-1 lead with a 170 finish. The Englishman euphorically expressed his cheers to the audience that he had caught the so-called “big fish”.
Own singing for Wasp
As a result, Littler won set after set in a hurry – the defending champion was not bothered by the well-known Ally Pally wasp. This had been buzzing around his body for almost a minute and disrupted the proceedings in the final, which was the final of the Junior World Championships a good two years ago. The fans took it with humor and dedicated their own song to the wasp.
A few sets later the game was over and Littler was back on the throne. The German professionals, who experienced a disappointing tournament, were nowhere near the level of the two finalists in London.
A quartet made it to the third round – but in this round Martin Schindler, Gabriel Clemens, Arno Merk and Ricardo Pietreczko all lost their games. This means that Clemens from Saarland remains the only German professional who made it to the semi-finals. The national leader Schindler slipped from 13th place to 15th place after the World Cup.
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