{"id":185200,"date":"2025-06-15T01:59:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T01:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/185200\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T01:59:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T01:59:29","slug":"luke-littler-and-luke-humphries-are-smashed-in-shock-world-cup-of-darts-exit-in-frankfurt-with-english-pair-jeered-on-stage-extending-youngsters-miserable-time-in-germany-after-crowd-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/185200\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Littler and Luke Humphries are SMASHED in shock World Cup of Darts exit in Frankfurt with English pair jeered on stage &#8211; extending youngster&#8217;s miserable time in Germany after crowd complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"mol-bullets-with-font\">\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>The top seeds were notably below par as they lost 8-4 in the second round\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>Littler and Humphries recorded a 93 average but were poor on the doubles<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>They were awarded MBEs in the King&#8217;s Birthday Honours just 24 hours before\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"author-section byline-plain\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/profile-2942\/dan-davis.html\" class=\"author\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DANIEL DAVIS<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"byline-section\"> Published:  16:04 EDT, 14 June 2025   |  Updated:  19:20 EDT, 14 June 2025   <\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\"><a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/luke-littler\/index.html\" id=\"mol-a19b9e20-495a-11f0-85d5-b98ce336be02\" rel=\"noopener\">Luke Littler<\/a> and Luke Humphries crashed out of the World Cup of Darts after being thrashed by Germany in front of a partisan crowd in Frankfurt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The pre-tournament favourites, who had both been awarded MBEs in the King&#8217;s Birthday Honours less than 24 hours before, were shellshocked as Martin Schindler and Ricardo Pietreczko cruised to an emphatic 8-4 victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The two Brits were notably below par in a hostile atmosphere and found themselves with a mountain to climb after sheepishly trailing 5-2 at the break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Despite England threatening a brief resurgence when they reduced the deficit to 7-4, Pietreczko took out the decisive 62 finish with his last dart to send the crowd into raptures &#8211; and Littler and Humphries packing at only the first hurdle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The 3,500 strong crowd at the Eissporthalle roared on every dart from the German pair and Schindler and Pietreczko were propelled to an early 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Littler and Humphries briefly found their footing &#8211; and a taste of their usual scoring power &#8211; to pull themselves back on level terms, but after meekly surrendering the advantage in leg five, they were comfortably second best.<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-a79fd736a4bb2829\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99380929-0-image-a-97_1749931327011.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Luke Littler and Luke Humphries were dumped out of the World Cup of Darts in a major shock\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Luke Littler and Luke Humphries were dumped out of the World Cup of Darts in a major shock<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-891265d70ab2af4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99380933-0-image-a-98_1749931332316.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\" alt=\"World No 1 Humphries and teenage sensation Littler were below par against Germany\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">World No 1 Humphries and teenage sensation Littler were below par against Germany<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-13ce878600a9ff55\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99380935-0-image-a-99_1749931337526.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Germany were roared on to a stunning 8-4 victory by a partisan crowd in Frankfurt\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Germany were roared on to a stunning 8-4 victory by a partisan crowd in Frankfurt<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">England entered the tournament in the second round as the top seeds and were roundly booed as they walked on to Fat Les&#8217; viral hit Vindaloo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">But Littler and Humphries could only record a combined average of just over 93 and found the outer ring with just four of their 11 attempts at a double.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Visibly fuming after the winning dart, Littler quickly shook hands with his opponents before making his way off the stage without Humphries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The resounding defeat came just a year after Humphries, the world No 1, had won the World Cup alongside Michael Smith &#8211;\u00a0 a record fifth victory for England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Pre-match, Schindler insisted that Littler and Humphries were beatable and after Germany&#8217;s stunning upset, he revelled in backing up his prediction.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I was right,&#8217; he told Sky Sports. &#8216;We believed in ourselves and I think we&#8217;ve been putting in a solid performance and obviously the double 16s from Ricardo when it mattered. We are very happy to go through.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Littler has often been booed while playing in Germany and he even threatened to boycott tournaments in the country after losing at the German Darts Grand Prix.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The 18-year-old was knocked out in the semi-finals by Gian van Veen in Munich and took to social media to express his frustration.<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-974dd87d98b49e1c\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99381651-14812997-image-a-116_1749933671421.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Littler and Humphries were both poor on the doubles and averaged just over 93\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Littler and Humphries were both poor on the doubles and averaged just over 93<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-46f88f2a3d6487f3\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/97544651-14812997-Luke_Littler_has_hinted_he_will_skip_several_events_in_Germany_a-a-118_17499336929.jpeg\" height=\"404\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Littler hinted he will skip several events in Germany after being booed playing there\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Littler hinted he will skip several events in Germany after being booed playing there<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-a8c35e5f343f65f4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/97544847-14812997-He_shared_a_fuming_Instagram_post_from_a_back_seat_of_a_car_sayi-a-117_17499336808.jpeg\" height=\"1047\" width=\"634\" alt=\"He shared a fuming Instagram post from a back seat of a car saying he was 'glad' to stay away\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">He shared a fuming Instagram post from a back seat of a car saying he was &#8216;glad&#8217; to stay away<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Posting on Instagram, he wrote: &#8216;Shouldn&#8217;t have been in Munich but had to play anyway. Next one in Germany for me is Dortmund and I am glad to say that.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Littler skipped the European Grand Prix and appears likely to also miss the upcoming Baltic Sea Open and multiple Players Championship events.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I had a little headloss moment, as some of us players do,&#8217; he said after his loss to Van Veen. &#8216;I just don&#8217;t get it, and I can&#8217;t explain it.\u00a0Obviously, you do your walk-on, but then as soon as I got on stage, I started getting booed.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">He added: &#8216;I got booed in Hildesheim last year against Peter Wright on the European Tour. I was flying and then they started booing me and I lost.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;Obviously, the Germans mustn&#8217;t like us English.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"linkButtonRowItem\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/luke-littler\/index.html?ico=article_topics_module\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Luke Littler<\/a><a class=\"linkButtonRowItem\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/luke-humphries\/index.html?ico=article_topics_module\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Luke Humphries<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    Share or comment on this article:<br \/>\n                        Luke Littler and Luke Humphries are SMASHED in shock World Cup of Darts exit in Frankfurt with English pair jeered on stage &#8211; extending youngster&#8217;s miserable time in Germany after crowd complaints<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The top seeds were notably below par as they lost 8-4 in the second round\u00a0 Littler and Humphries&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[92,7408,2000,299,1824,33939,21102,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-185200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-darts","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-luke-humphries","14":"tag-luke-littler","15":"tag-sport"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114684912507950669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}