2024-01-01 22:16:45
Teenager Luke Littler’s run at the World Darts Championship in London continues. On New Year’s Day, the 16-year-old Englishman moved into the semi-finals on Tuesday with a confident 5-1 win over Northern Irishman Brendan Dolan. There “The Nuke” will face former world champion Rob Cross, who had previously won a memorable match against Chris Dobey 5:4. Luke Humphries is also in the semi-finals, but top favorite Michael van Gerwen surprisingly failed.
Van Gerwen lost his quarter-final against English outsider Scott Williams 3:5. The 34-year-old Dutchman had so far walked through the tournament and won his first three games without losing a set. Mighty Mike, as van Gerwen is known, made a strange appearance at Alexandra Palace.
The 2014, 2017 and 2019 world champion made a few mistakes on the doubles courts in the first sets. As the game progressed, the scoring became increasingly weaker. Van Gerwen often didn’t even hit the big single numbers. The defeat against the unseeded Williams was the logical consequence. Williams will now face Humphries, who showed a strong performance in the clear 5-1 win against his English compatriot Dave Chisnall.
World Cup debutant Littler, however, remained unimpressed on the biggest darts stage. He has only given up four sets in all five of his World Cup games so far. The successes over Christian Kist (3:0), Andrew Gilding (3:1), Matt Campbell (4:1), Raymond van Barneveld (4:1) and now against veteran Dolan were all confident.
In the world rankings, Littler has already moved into the top 50. With a world title worth 500,000 pounds (almost 600,000 euros), the young Englishman would even make it into the top ten. The final takes place on Wednesday.
But first the 33-year-old Cross is waiting, who won the duel between two Englishmen despite being 0-4 behind. His opponent Dobey had defeated defending champion Michael Smith 4-0 in the round of 16, and the round of the last eight ended in severe disappointment.
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