LUKE LITTLER ditched his darts mid-way through his first defeat in 22 matches against Gerwyn Price.
The world champion lost his first competitive clash for over two months, going down 6-2 to Price in the .
Luke Littler had to change his darts against Gerwyn Price
Littler, 18, was a shadow of his normal explosive scoring, averaging 94, and he changed his midway through the clash.
The Nuke had been trying a prototype new Target Darts set-up at the tournament but he switched back to his old favourites to try and rescue the result, without success.
He took the first leg with double 10 but Price was rampant thereafter and took the next three legs.
Littler then took time out at his table to switch back to his old darts at 3-1 down and improved slightly. Price made it five successive legs to lead 5-1.
The World No1 took out double 10 again to narrow the deficit but Price soon wrapped it up.
last lost to Matt Campbell in a Players Championship on October 30.
It was his biggest defeat since losing 11-7 to in the World Series finals in Amsterdam in mid-September.
Littler had spoken about trialling the new darts after his opening win over Paul Lim the night before.
He said: “With the new darts I threw a nine-darter within the space of 25 minutes. So I thought I’d give them a go tonight and they went pretty well.
“Target boss Garry (Plummer) sent me the pictures a few months ago. There’s different colours coming out.
“But I said the black and silver set are the ones for me. So he’s got them ready for this weekend and so far so good.
“Every set of darts I want to make them work. I always want to try and win games with them. But obviously in the past I’ve struggled and always gone back to the Gen 1s. But we’ll have to see how they go tomorrow.”
Fans picked up on the change with one saying: “I’m sure Target will be delighted Littler has changed his darts after 11 legs with his new ones.”
Another added: “Target fuming as Littler fucks off his new horrible looking darts already.”
A third wrote: “And just like the Loadouts, we’ll never see Littler use those darts again😂”
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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