As both contestants lined up under the stage lights of the Paddy Power World Darts Championship, spectators noticed an interesting sight on the scoreboard: two contestants named Luke were competing for the same title. What makes the coincidence even more interesting is there were name twins competing in the finals last year as well. Michael² in the previous, and Luke² in the current. The audience prepared for trouble this year, and the Lukes made it double¹.
Throughout the tournament this year, sixteen year old Luke Littler earned what was, at worst, a “second place title” from his debut in a professional darts tournament. The British rookie had been outscoring opponents by an increasing number of sets each match until he met the veteran Rob Cross in the semi finals. Cross was the only opponent who could score over one set on Littler the whole tournament besides Humphries in the championship match of the tournament.
Luke Humphries, on the other hand, had a slow beginning in the tournament. He found his groove by round five with a four set gap victory against Dave Chisnall and a gap of six in the semi finals versus Scott Williams.
Up to the last moments of the championship game, Humphries rode his wave of confidence. He ended up winning the title and overcoming Littler to make his Cinderella run finish in second.
Even after the eventful championship, the sixteen year old was in high spirits. His post match comments reminded the crowd of just how young he was. Since darts is a math heavy sport compared to others, he confidently and unexpectedly exclaimed that he “wasn’t good at math in school!” The more he practiced the game, however, “the more you know about setting up, scoring and finishing. People say it’s like muscle memory.” Littler is known to have a small obsession with his favorite XBox game, EA Sports FC. His plans with his prize money haven’t been decided yet, but he joked that he planned to, “treat myself. I think someone on Twitter calculated it. If I was to spend two hundred grand, which I’m not going to obviously, I could get like, 83 million credits or something. Someone calculated it as soon as I lost last night.”
“Littler may not have won the title like he had hoped, but his early success in the sport brought new fans to darts as well as motivation and hope for younger arrow throwers to pursue the title of the world’s best darts player.”
Luke Humphries hasn’t clutched a WDC title in his career until this year’s January tournament. He had been working on his physical health by losing some weight during the 2023 year, motivating himself by repeating, “It’s just 30 minutes every day, that’s all I need.” With the enormous confidence boost coming from his recent successes in life, Humphries does not intend to slow down his success in darts anytime soon. He’s started to routinely hammer down the process of “motivating myself to do more: I want to be a double world champion and win loads of majors.” Humpries paid homage to Littler after the match with many compliments on his character and work ethic saying he is “relentless” and sure to “win plenty” in seasons to come.
Littler may not have won the title like he had hoped, but his early success in the sport brought new fans to darts as well as motivation and hope for younger arrow throwers to pursue the title of the world’s best darts player. As an added bonus, maybe Littler will be able to go on his 83 million EA FC credit spending spree next year.
- The main antagonists, Jessie and James, of the pokemon series sang a theme song in which the lyrics are “Prepare for trouble, and make it double”
O’Neill, Lauren. “Luke Littler on Losing the World Darts Championship but Winning the Internet.” British GQ, 5 Jan. 2024, www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/luke-littler-darts-interview-2024.
