{"id":185469,"date":"2025-06-15T04:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T04:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/185469\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T04:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T04:28:14","slug":"one-of-the-biggest-upsets-luke-littler-and-luke-humphries-sent-packing-from-world-cup-of-darts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/185469\/","title":{"rendered":"‘One of the biggest upsets’ – Luke Littler and Luke Humphries sent packing from World Cup of Darts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke Humphries and Luke Littler have been dumped out of the World Cup of Darts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The English pair were beaten by host nation Germany as their title defence ended at the first hurdle.<\/p>\n

\"Humphries<\/a><\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

Humphries could not believe the resultCredit: Sky Sports\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

A frustrated Littler stormed off stage after the defeatCredit: Sky Sports<\/p>\n

After entering in the second round as top seeds, Humphries and Littler failed to get going after being booed by the crowd in Frankfurt.<\/p>\n

Instead, Ricardo Pietreczko and Martin Schindler produced a dominant display on home soil to reach the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

After building a comfortable lead, the German duo were able to hold on to win 8-4.<\/p>\n

Their victory prompted wild celebrations from the crowd at the Eissporthalle, who had jeered Humphries and Littler during their walk-on.<\/p>\n

Having entered the tournament as both top seeds and favourites, the loss left Wayne Mardle stunned on commentary.<\/p>\n

The Sky Sports pundit exclaimed: “That is one of the biggest upsets you will see in the World Cup of Darts.”<\/p>\n

Their shock exit comes less than 24 hours after both Humphries and Littler were recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both players are set to receive an MBE for their services to darts.<\/p>\n

Following the match-winning dart, a frustrated Littler stormed off the stage.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, his team-mate remained for far longer as he shook hands with his opponents and the referee.<\/p>\n

It comes just a year after Humphries had won the tournament alongside Michael Smith, clinching a record fifth English victory.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the match represented the first time Cool Hand had teamed up with Littler.<\/p>\n

\"Germany's<\/a><\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

Germany’s win was immediately dubbed the ‘one of the biggest upsets’ in the event’s historyCredit: Sky Sports\"Littler<\/a><\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

Littler and Humphries had been top seeds and tournament favourites in FrankfurtCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

The pair are currently ranked as the top two players in the world as the last two PDC World Darts Championship winners.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Schindler and Pietreczko are ranked 18th and 28th in the PDC Order of Merit, respectively.<\/p>\n

Phil Taylor and James Wade were previously the world’s top two when they were beaten by Spain<\/a> at the 2010 World Cup of Darts.<\/p>\n

The Spanish pairing of Carlos Rodriguez and Toni Alcinas dumped out the tournament favourites 15 years before Littler and Humphries’ defeat.<\/p>\n

When England darts stars Phil Taylor and James Wade suffered SHOCK World Cup of Darts defeat to low ranked rivals<\/p>\n

Germany will now face either Argentina or Australia on Sunday for a place in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

They have never reached the final of the event in any of their previous 14 appearances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Humphries and Luke Littler have been dumped out of the World Cup of Darts. The English pair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,33939,21102,12,76002,14,76001],"class_list":{"0":"post-185469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-luke-humphries","10":"tag-luke-littler","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pdc-tour","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-world-cup-of-darts"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114685497100048705","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185469","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=185469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}