Luke Littler was dumped out of Players Championship 6 by Dom Taylor, who was only able to compete after seeing a two-year ban from the sport overturned
Luke Littler exited the Players Championship 6 to a darts star who is only competing after having a two-year ban overturned.
The world champion won a hat-trick of events last week, as Littler lifted the UK Open, Night 5 of the Premier League in Brighton, and the Belgian Darts Open within just seven days.
But his winning streak was ended by Gian van Veen in the semi-final of Players Championship 5, and his momentum was extinguished in the second round of the Players Championship by Dom Taylor in a 6-5 defeat.
Taylor, 26, had only returned to action at the end of January after serving a suspension for failing a drug test. ‘The Tower’ was forced to pull out of the Players Championship Finals in November, where he was supposed to play former world champion Michael Smith in the first round.
The Bristol-star ace admitted to breaking anti-doping rules and was banned for 24 months. However, that ban was cut to three months after Taylor proved the substance wasn’t performance enhancing and was taken outside of competition.
Taylor later agreed to do a three-month course in substance abuse treatment, seeing the ban then cut to just one month.
It was going to take something special to stop ‘The Nuke’s’ dominant run, and Taylor produced exactly that as he averaged the same 104 mark as Littler.
The match went the distance to a deciding leg, where Taylor checked out 25 for a 15-darter under huge pressure, with Littler waiting on 50. However, Taylor exited in the following round with a 6-4 defeat to Jermaine Wattimena.