Reigning world champion Luke Littler and 2024 champion Luke Humphries have changed the darts landscape over the past two years, but the two rivals will not meet in the World Darts Championship final this year
Luke Littler booked his semi-final place in the World Darts Championship, but Luke Humphries was unable to join the reigning champion in the final four.
The defending world champion made lightwork of his quarter-final game against Krzysztof Ratajski, cruising to a 5-0 victory. But it wasn’t to be for the 2024 world champ as he felt the power of Gian van Veen, losing 5-1 in a demolition job on Thursday evening.
Humphries found himself in the tougher side of the draw to Littler from the off and so it proved as the world No.2 had to get past the red-hot European Championship winner Gian van Veen to reach the semi-finals.
Van Veen, 23, turned up at Ally Pally without previously winning a game in the tournament but he has continued his stunning form in a year where he has delivered on his staggering potential.
And the Dutchman proved the belief that the game would be an all-timer as he won the opening set against the throw. But Humphries returned to level up the game without a break of his own.
Van Veen was flying when he claimed the following two sets to take a 3-1 lead and put himself in control of the contest. ‘The Giant’ then survived set darts to return and take a 4-1 advantage.
The 23-year-old continued to pile on the pressure and finally buried Humphries 3-1 in the sixth set, sealing a stunning 5-1 victory and averaging 105.41. Van Veen is the new provisional world No.3, taking over Michael van Gerwen and ending his mammoth run as Dutch No.1. He will play Gary Anderson tomorrow.
Earlier in the night, Littler enjoyed a much more straightforward game as he averaged over 100 in his whitewash victory over the Pole.
‘The Nuke’ checked out 55.56 per cent of his doubles and fired in four ton-plus outs, including his first Big Fish checkout of the tournament. Littler’s most troubling moment came in the opening set when he had to break Ratajski’s throw to enter the break in front, and he did in style with the 170.
Littler then reeled off two straight sets without losing a leg, eventually comfortably getting home having lost just five legs in total.
The reigning world champ must beat Ryan Searle in the semi-final to reach his third successive World Championship final. But ‘Heavy Metal’ will be no easy task after he dropped his first sets of the entire tournament in his 5-2 win against Jonny Clayton on Thursday afternoon.
After his bite back at the crowd following his win over Rob Cross, Littler was booed onto the stage and did his post-match interview in the studio some 10 minutes after winning the match.
He joked: “The crowd were very good tonight – it’s a new year so obviously there must be some new fans! The fans were great, I was good and we move on to tomorrow.”