Luke Littler vs Gian van Veen – World Darts Championship closing LIVE: Live rating and set-by-set updates as 18-year-old champion appears to be like to win Alexandra Palace title once more

As professionals, these guys have faced off five times before, with van Veen actually the more successful.

He has three wins to Littler’s two, with their most recent meeting at the Grand Prix in October, when the Nuke ran out a 2-0 winner.

Littler also got the better of the Dutchman in November 2023 to win the World Youth Championship in the final – a title van Veen has since won back-to-back.

If Littler wasn’t about, we’d be talking about this guy as the best young star in the world and him making today’s final would probably be a much bigger story.

Nonetheless, Gian van Veen’s run to this position has been nothing short of stunning. His European Championship win at the back-end of last year seems to have taken him to new heights, and we can now comfortably call him world class.

Here’s his run to the final:

• 3-1 vs Cristo Reyes
• 3-1 vs Alan Soutar
• 4-1 vs Madara Razma
• 4-1 vs Charlie Manby
• 5-1 vs Luke Humphries
• 6-3 vs Gary Anderson

It’s just expected at this point.

Littler has qualified for his third consecutive World Championship final at the first time of asking, and he has absolutely romped his way to the position.

Here’s how he got here:

• 3-0 vs Darius Labanauskas
• 3-0 vs David Davies
• 4-0 vs Mensur Suljovic
• 4-2 vs Rob Cross
• 5-0 vs Krzysztof Ratajski
• 6-1 vs Ryan Searle

Will it be another rout tonight?

Hello everyone! Today is the day. Welcome to Daily Mail Sport’s live coverage of the World Darts Championship final!

What a mouth-watering game we have in store. Youth vs youth, talent vs talent, and champion vs hopeful.

It’s Luke Littler vs Gian van Veen from Alexandra Palace. I cannot wait.

We think it’ll get underway at around 8:15, so stay tuned until then for all the build-up!