{"id":66900,"date":"2025-05-01T23:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T23:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/66900\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T23:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T23:18:11","slug":"luke-littler-fights-back-for-premier-league-victory-in-birmingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/66900\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Littler fights back for Premier League victory in Birmingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke Littler fought back to see off Michael van Gerwen 6-4 to win night 13 of the Premier League in Birmingham, setting a new record with a fifth overall evening victory of the season.<\/p>\n

World champion Littler had beaten Stephen Bunting 6-5 in the opening quarter-final at the Utilita Arena, leaving Bunting still bottom of the table, before also edging past Nathan Aspinall in a last-leg decider.<\/p>\n

After defeating Rob Cross earlier in the evening, Van Gerwen regrouped to get past last week\u2019s nightly winner Gerwyn Price and secure his spot in the final.<\/p>\n

Van Gerwen \u2013 still chasing a first overall night win this year \u2013 made a strong start, breaking Littler in the opening leg and then opening up a 3-1 lead.<\/p>\n

However, defending Premier League champion Littler then capitalised on some misplaced darts from the Dutchman to break back before moving 4-3 in front after more heavy scoring.<\/p>\n

Van Gerwen had the throw in the next leg, but Littler was again first down to a finish only to miss tops.<\/p>\n

After Van Gerwen failed to take out double 10, Littler nailed 40 at the second time of asking to wrap up a fifth nightly win on the back of a 102.5 match average.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael van Gerwen had made a strong start to the final in Birmingham (David Davies\/PA)<\/p>\n

Littler tops the table with 35 points, nine clear of Luke Humphries, with Price third and Van Gerwen now up into the final play-off spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I got over the finish line in my first game against Stephen, I was confident,\u201d Littler told Sky Sports after becoming the first player to win five Premier League night wins in the same season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got away with it against Nathan (in the semi-final), but then it (the final) was a cracking game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have enjoyed it right the way through, and I\u2019ll certainly relax.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuke (Humphries) isn\u2019t playing his best darts at the minute so I\u2019m gradually building that point advantage over his so I am very confident I will finish top of the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the semi-finals, Littler eventually got past Aspinall in a close contest, with the world champion having survived a match dart before taking out 46 on double 10 against the throw.<\/p>\n

Van Gerwen \u2013 a seven-time Premier League champion \u2013 hit five maximums in a solid 6-3 victory over Welshman Price, who had beaten world number one Humphries in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/p>\n

Stephen Bunting again came up short in Birmingham (David Davies\/PA)<\/p>\n

In the opening match of the night, Bunting had broken Littler in the first leg then held to lead 2-0 and 3-1 before the 18-year-old recovered from his slow start to take the eighth leg and level up at 4-4.<\/p>\n

Littler missed the bullseye on match dart to finish off 170, as Bunting came back to hold and force a deciding leg, which the 18-year-old eventually edged on double five.<\/p>\n

In his quarter-final against Chris Dobey, Aspinall had raced into a 3-0 lead before eventually closing out a 6-3 win, boosting his chances of making the play-offs.<\/p>\n

\"Luke<\/p>\n

It was another disappointing night for world number one Luke Humphries (David Davies\/PA)<\/p>\n

Price had beaten Humphries in last week\u2019s final in Liverpool and dug in again for a repeat \u2013 coming back to win the final three legs to take a 6-5 victory over the world number one on a 102 checkout.<\/p>\n

Van Gerwen built on an early break to close out a 6-4 win over Cross, who also still has not got a nightly victory on the board.<\/p>\n

The Premier League next heads to Leeds for night 14, after which there will be two more events ahead of the play-offs at The O2 in London on May 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Littler fought back to see off Michael van Gerwen 6-4 to win night 13 of the Premier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,33941,4884,33939,21102,21103,33942,101,33940,33938,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-66900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-gerwyn-price","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-luke-humphries","14":"tag-luke-littler","15":"tag-michael-van-gerwen","16":"tag-nathan-aspinall","17":"tag-premier-league","18":"tag-premier-league-champion","19":"tag-stephen-bunting","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114435136352291434","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66900","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=66900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}