{"id":278701,"date":"2025-07-21T01:01:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T01:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/278701\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T01:01:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T01:01:15","slug":"world-matchplay-luke-littler-eases-into-last-16-after-beating-ryan-searle-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/278701\/","title":{"rendered":"World Matchplay: Luke Littler eases into last 16 after beating Ryan Searle"},"content":{"rendered":"

World champion Luke Littler eased into the second round of the World Matchplay in Blackpool with a comfortable 10-2 win over Ryan Searle.<\/b><\/p>\n

The 18-year-old’s maiden appearance at the Winter Gardens last year had resulted in a first-round defeat<\/a> by Michael van Gerwen and he was keen to amends this time around.<\/p>\n

He was too good for Searle from the outset, winning the first four legs with only 48 darts and he finished with a superb average of 108.92 and 52.6% on his checkouts.<\/p>\n

The world number 19 had no answer to the onslaught from Littler who avoided the fate that befell world number one Luke Humphries who was beaten<\/a> in his opening match on Saturday.<\/p>\n

“I felt very comfortable out there,” Littler told Sky Sports. “I was well up for tonight and I’m just so glad to get that win and that winning feeling.<\/p>\n

“As people know, I’m not a practiser, but I’ve been practising for this one and putting in more time at home. I’m glad it has paid off and I can’t wait to come back for the next game.”<\/p>\n

Littler’s opponent in the last 16 will be Dutchman Jermaine Wattimena who beat 2021 champion Peter Wright 10-8.<\/p>\n

Rob Cross, the 2019 winner also bowed out after a 10-8 loss to Dutchman Dirk van Duijvenbode but the 2018 champion Gary Anderson beat Luke Woodhouse 10-5 to advance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World champion Luke Littler eased into the second round of the World Matchplay in Blackpool with a comfortable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-278701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114888526177005042","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278701","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=278701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}