Luke Littler is preparing for his first tournament as reigning world champion and he’s already shown his rivals up.
Luke Littler, champion of the world. It has a nice ring to it, right?
That’s what the teenage sensation will hear for the first time when he returns to the oche for this week’s Bahrain Darts Masters.
It’s not even been two weeks since Littler brushed off three-time world champion Michael van Gerwen at Alexandra Palace in London.
And fresh from his stunning World Championship win – as well as the cool £500,000 payday – Littler has once again shown up his darts rivals.
Statistics shared by Darts Orakel detail how Littler finished 24 as the most clinical player on a specific double.
Out of every player who threw more than 100 darts in a televised or streamed event, Littler had the best conversion rate, having taken out a whopping one in every two (50 per cent) of his throws at double 10.
Littler’s love affair with double 10 is no secret and in this month’s World Championship final, the 17-year-old made it to double figures for his D10 checkouts.
But even more impressive than that was the fact Littler also sat third in the list of players on a specific double across the 2024 season.
As per Darts Orakel, Littler took out an equally impressive 49 per cent of his attempts at D5, reaffirming the belief that he’s almost untouchable on the D20, D10, D5 route.
Such has been Littler’s impressive displays on said numbers, it’s been suggested the teenager intentionally drags his attempts at double 20 down a touch, so he can move across to his favourite double 10 instead.
While it’s unlikely that’s the case, these stats will no doubt strike fear into his opponents who were already left scratching their heads over how to get the better of him.
Their first opportunity to do so since Littler was crowned the king of the darts world will come in Bahrain this week, where the Runcorn-born star headlines a star-studded line-up.
Alongside eight Asian representatives, Littler will be joined in the Middle Eastern nation by Stephen Bunting, Luke Humphries, Nathan Aspinall, Gerwyn Price, Rob Cross, Peter Wright and Chris Dobey.
It’s the first tournament Litter will enter looking to retain a title, having won the tournament 12 months ago, defeating familiar foe Van Gerwen in the final.
There will be no repeat of that or the World Championship final this week, given Van Gerwen is missing the tournament because of family reasons.
The action gets underway in Bahrain on Thursday afternoon.
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Luke LittlerDartsWorld Darts ChampionshipLuke HumphriesMichael van Gerwen
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