Luke Littler

Luke Littler (born 21 January 2007) is an English professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events.

He is the current PDC World Youth Champion, the current Bahrain Masters Champion, and the current 2024 Belgian Darts Open champion.

He is also the youngest player to have won a match in the WDF World Darts Championship, and PDC World Darts Championship.

He is also the youngest player to reach the PDC World Darts Championship final, aged 16 years, the youngest ever player to hit 2 televised nine darters; the first one he achieved, at the 2024 Bahrain Darts Masters aged 16, and the second, he achieved at the 2024 Belgian Darts Open aged 17.

Littler was born on 21 January 2007 in Runcorn and grew up in nearby Warrington.

He began playing darts when he was 18 months old, after his father bought him a magnetic dart board from a pound shop.

He scored his first 180 at the age of six and a nine-dart finish at the age of 13.

When he was 10, he joined the St Helens Darts Academy and began playing in under-21 leagues.

In 2019, Littler won the England Youth Grand Prix and the Isle of Man Masters youth competition, where he was able to defend his title in 2020.

The 2020 JDC tour featured two titles from Littler, who is also signed to partners program "Elite1" organised by Target.

Littler won the youth title at the England Open in September 2021 and finished second in the British Pentathlon.

In November 2021, Littler won his first seniors title at the Irish Open defeating Barry Copeland by 6–2 in legs, and thus qualified for the 2022 WDF World Darts Championship at the age of 14.

At the end of November, during the JDC MVG Masters tournament, he hit a nine-dart finish.

Littler won the JDC Super 16 in Milton Keynes at the end of January 2022, beating Eleanor Cairns in the final.

In March 2022, he won the youth competition at the Isle Of Man Open and advanced to the finals of the Isle of Man Classic.

At the 2022 WDF World Darts Championship, Littler started as a seeded player from second round and won his first match against Ben Hazel 3–2 in sets.

He was then beaten 3–0 in sets by Richard Veenstra.

During the Welsh Open warm-up tournament, Littler hit a 121.86 average in one of his matches.

A day later, he won another adult tournament in his career.

In June 2022, he also won the Romanian Classic, beating Jelle Klaasen in the final by 5–1 in legs.

At the 2022 WDF Europe Cup Youth, he won the gold medal in three men's competitions (singles, team and overall).

His outstanding achievement was defeating Archie Self in the finals of the singles competition by 6–1 in legs.

In the pair competition, together with Archie Self, lost in the semi-finals by 4–1 in legs to Thomas Banks, and Charlie Manby.

At the end of September 2022, Littler was selected by the national federation to participate in the 2022 WDF Europe Cup.

On the second day of the tournament, he advanced to the quarter-finals of the pairs competition where he played together with James Hurrell.

They lost to Sam Canket and Nick Kenny from Wales by 4–1 in legs.

On the third day of the tournament, he advanced to the quarter-finals of the singles competition, lost to Andy Baetens by 5–4 in legs.

In the team competition, he won the gold medal.

In the points classification, as a representative of England, he also contributed to won a gold medal.

Littler won the JDC World Darts Championship in London at the end of December 2022, beating Harry Gregory by 5–0 in legs.

Littler made his debut at a PDC major event at the 2023 UK Open, after qualifying to the tournament via an amateur qualifying event organized by Rileys Sports Bars.

A first round 6–0 whitewash defeat of Nick Fullwell was followed by a 6–2 victory against Rusty-Jake Rodriguez in the second round and a 6–5 victory over Ritchie Edhouse in the third round.

This meant that Littler had reached the fourth round at the tournament, the best showing of a Rileys qualifier alongside Thomas Banks.

Littler lost his fourth round match to eventual semi-finalist Adam Gawlas 10–8.

For his showing Littler acquired £2,500 in prize money, which ranked him on the PDC Order of Merit for the first time.

In May 2023, Littler won the third series of the MODUS Super Series, defeating Jacob Taylor 4–1 in the final.

In August 2023, he won the title for the second time by defeating Colin Osborne by 4 legs to 2 in the final.

In November 2023, Littler beat Gian van Veen in the 2023 PDC World Youth Championship final.

The game ended 6–4.

Littler made his debut at the 2024 PDC World Darts Championship qualifying as a result of his placement in the PDC Development Tour, where he whitewashed former world champion Christian Kist in the first round.