LUKE LITTLER will throw for the first £1million prize in darts after reaching a third consecutive World Championship final.
The Nuke thrillingly brushed aside the inconvenience of losing the opening set to Ryan Searle to power through to Saturday’s showdown.
Luke Littler is in the World Championship final for a third straight yearCredit: AP
Luke Littler swept aside Ryan Searle 6-1Credit: PA
In a spell of sheer brilliance, Littler won 11 legs in a row at one point and averaged 105.35 in another dominant display in North London.
The world No.1 is one game away – seven sets to be precise – from becoming the first person to defend this title for a decade.
More importantly for his family’s bank balance, he has the chance to receive the richest prize in the sport’s history on the third day of the New Year.
Celebs pals Angry Ginge, the popular YouTube streamer and King of the Jungle, and Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi watched from the VIP section as Littler ran out the comfortable 6-1 winner.
The 18-year-old has never lost in the semi-finals of a PDC TV tournament and has won 18 of his 19 matches at this competition in three campaigns.
It is a phenomenal record but then he is a phenomenal player and he knows he has gears to accelerate though against either Gary Anderson or Gian van Veen in the final tomorrow night.
Littler, of course, can only beat what is in front of him but he has been helped by the draw opening up on his run to a third successive semi-final in this competition.
Chris Dobey and Gerwyn Price, the number eight and nine seeds, were not good enough to reach the quarter-finals, where they would have met the reigning champion on New Year’s, as they went out before Christmas.
Instead of facing either high-ranked Stephen Bunting or Jonny Clayton in the final four, he was paired unexpectedly with Searle whose past record here had been average to say the least.
There were very loud boos for his sixth walk-on of this tournament, with some punters not forgetting nor forgiving his rant in a Sky Sports TV interview following his 4-2 win over Rob Cross in the Last 16.
Yet this was just all part of the pantomime because those same people were soon singing along to his music and chanting his name.
The hostility he had feared after telling a section of the fanbase that they “pay for my prize money” never actually materialised.
Searle – who walks out to “Paranoid” by Ozzy Osbourne’s Black Sabbath – would have been forgiven for feeling paranoid about facing Littler given he had lost all of his previous five clashes.
But he excelled himself by claiming the opening set on a 76 checkout, even though his 94.50 average was 11 points lower.
For Littler, this was the first time he had lost the opening set of a World Championship game for two years – ever since the 6-2 semi-final battering of Cross in January 2024.
For Searle to have any chance of prolonging this contest and causing the upset, he had to take his moments when the inevitable Littler onslaught began.
The No.1 seed claimed the second set, to level up at 1-1, with two double tens and a double-tops finish.
Devon thrower Searle, 38, had to make inroads in the sets where he was throwing first – the odd-numbered sets – but in the deciding leg of set three, he crucially made two key mistakes.
His opening visit of 15 was branded “horrendous” by John Part, the three-time world darts champion on Sky Spots Comms, and then he mucked up a 69 outshot with a stray single seven.
Ruthless Littler took advantage, broke the throw and never looked back, shouting ‘Come On’ when he moved 3-1 ahead thanks to 96 and 110 checkouts.
No.20 seed Searle wiped the sweat off his brow in the fifth set and within no time he was 4-1 down, probably thinking: How on earth did that happen so quickly?
In leg two of set six, Littler hit back-to-back 180s and the crowd were off their seats in the hope he would nail the nine-darter but the seventh dart was off its intended target.
To open up set seven, Littler nailed seven perfect darts but could not find the perfect leg – and then Searle responded with a magnificent 170.
It was a great moment of theatre, worthy of a fist bump between the pair, but it was brief interlude before the inevitable – with Littler sealing the win on double 20 with 38 minutes on the game clock.
It is hard, even two years into his rollercoaster journey on tour, to come up with the right words to describe what Littler is doing.
Wayne Mardle, the respected Sky Sports TV presenter, tried his best, saying: “Luke’s a darting freak – and that is meant as a compliment.
“What he can do in darts, others cannot begin to fathom.”
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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