{"id":262737,"date":"2026-01-02T03:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/262737\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T03:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:26:08","slug":"luke-littler-hails-crowd-after-cruising-into-last-four-of-world-darts-championship-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/262737\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Littler hails crowd after cruising into last four of World Darts Championship \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke Littler<\/a> enjoyed the perfect evening at the World Darts Championship<\/a> as he got the Alexandra Palace crowd back on side en route to the semi-final and then saw biggest rival Luke Humphries crash out.<\/p>\n

Littler was booed heavily during his fourth-round win over Rob Cross and antagonised the baying fans further when he crassly thanked them for paying for his substantial prize money.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old defending champion said he was \u201cexpecting the worst\u201d for his quarter-final tie with Krzysztof Ratajski but had them in the palm of his hand after a virtuoso display, which saw him cruise to a 5-0 win.<\/p>\n

He then watched his great rival \u2013 and biggest threat for the title \u2013 Humphries lose 5-1 to Gian van Veen, making him an overwhelming favourite to become the back-to-back champion.<\/p>\n

Although there were some pantomime boos as he walked towards the stage, the overall response was positive and a rendition of \u2018There\u2019s only one Luke Littler\u2019 before the match started put his mind at ease.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a new year, so there\u2019s a new crowd, he said. \u201cA few boos here and there but as soon as I got on stage the crowd were absolutely unbelievable. Leading up to it my family and friends were like, \u2018whatever happens, happens\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I got on stage, I clapped everyone so they knew I wanted them on my side again. They were on my side tonight and I got the job done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it makes an impact. I am growing as a player mentally, I know how to deal with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rob Cross game definitely tested me and in future games I will know how to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teenager deserves the adulation as he looks on an unstoppable course to becoming the first man to retain the World Championship since Gary Anderson 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

Few can live with him and the scary thought for the rest of the field is that Littler has more gears to find ahead of his last-four date with Ryan Searle.<\/p>\n

Van Veen could well be the man who has the best chance of downing Littler after he trounced Humphries 5-1.<\/p>\n

The 2024 champion had vowed to go to war with Littler in a bid to regain the world title and the world number one spot but he will not even get a chance to lay a glove on him.<\/p>\n

\"GianGian van Veen of Netherlands celebrates his victory against Luke Humphries of England. Photograph: Warren Little\/Getty <\/p>\n

He did not account for coming up against an inspired Dutchman, who averaged 105.41, hit 11 180s and followed Littler in taking out a \u2018Big Fish\u2019 170 checkout.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis smile won\u2019t go off in the next 24 hours. I am so over the moon, I felt really good. It is indescribable,\u201d he said on stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuke is a fantastic player and whenever I play him we all know we need to play at our best to beat him and that\u2019s what I did today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Veen will next play Gary Anderson who returned to the semi-finals for the first time in four years after ending Justin Hood\u2019s dream debut run.<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old is enjoying a renaissance and is now just two wins away from lifting a third world title, 10 years after his last.<\/p>\n

If he can do so, he would become the oldest player to lift the PDC world title and join Michael van Gerwen in second place in the all-time list of champions.<\/p>\n

After beating Van Gerwen on Tuesday night, Anderson looked every bit a potential champion as he dispatched Hood 5-2.<\/p>\n

The Scot will now meet Luke Humphries or Gian van Veen in Friday\u2019s semi-final, which will be his eighth last-four encounter at Ally Pally.<\/p>\n

Littler\u2019s opponent Searle had not dropped a set in reaching the last eight and again showed his class in a 5-2 victory over number five seed Jonny Clayton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Littler enjoyed the perfect evening at the World Darts Championship as he got the Alexandra Palace crowd…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,134968,18,13,14,134966,6,19,17,134967,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-262737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-darts-results","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-gary-anderson","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-justin-hood","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115823377379483953","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}