Luke Littler reveals that rewatching last year’s final defeat inspired PDC triumph

Luke Littler has revealed how watching back his defeat in last year’s final in the hours before facing Michael van Gerwen gave him the inspiration to become the youngest world darts champion in history.The 17-year-old produced a nerveless performance to beat Van Gerwen 7-3 to lift his first PDC world title. But he insisted that looking back at his 7-4 loss to Luke Humphries last January on YouTube had given him a premonition of how he could win the biggest match of his life.“Earlier today I watched all the game back against Luke and I had the visions,” said Littler. “I knew what went wrong last year

Littler’s imperious PDC world title may be start of darting domination

The 17-year-old made history with his thrilling victory over Michael van Gerwen but who knows how many more he could win?There was a final flick of the fingers, before the fists began to pump and soar, and the tears started to flow across 17-year-old Luke Littler’s face. No wonder. The most famous teenager in the country had just become the youngest world champion in darts history.Over the past 13 months, Littler has repeatedly defied the rules of sporting gravity, rising from an unknown 16-year-old ranked world No 164 to its star attraction. Now, incredibly, he is also the PDC world champion after a thumping 7-3 victory of the three-time former winner Michael Van Gerwen, which also earned him a £500,000 cheque

Luke Littler beats Michael van Gerwen 7-3 to win PDC World Darts Championship final – as it happened

That’s it for our coverage of an historic night at Alexandra Palace, where Luke Littler confirmed the bleedin’ obvious: that he is a multi-generational talent who could become the greatest goat of all time. Oh, and that there has never been a worse time to be an aspiring male darts player.I’ll leave you with Jonathan Liew’s report from Ally Pally. Thanks as always for your company and emails. Goodnight!AveragesLittler 102

Luke Littler thrashes Michael van Gerwen to claim historic world title

Tonight the Palace; tomorrow the planet. Whatever Luke Littler goes on to achieve in the fields of darts, celebrity or world peace, nothing will ever quite match the crystalline beauty of this moment.Champion of the world for the first time, the culmination and fulfilment of a dream that has not – if you think about it – really been in gestation for that long. An ascent this violent and spectacular simply deserved a triumph to match, and in thrashing Michael van Gerwen by seven sets to three, Littler may well have demolished not just one of the greatest players in history, but an entire era. Darts, a game conceived in the pub, may well have been perfected in a teenage bedroom

Thunderous 144mph aces: Mpetshi Perricard leads ‘serve-bot’ revival

As Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard stepped to the baseline for the start of his contest against Frances Tiafoe in the sleepy suburbs of Brisbane on Thursday afternoon, his very first shot of the match drew dramatic, startled gasps from the full Pat Rafter Arena crowd. Although Mpetshi Perricard usually does not pay attention to serve speeds in the blazing heat of battle, the loud commotion after his thunderous ace led him to steal a glance at the speed clock. The screen read: 232kph (144mph).By the end of the opening game, the Frenchman had served four aces off his first five serves, finishing with a cool 227kph (141mph) second serve ace. He would finish an excellent straight-sets win over Tiafoe with 20 aces

Copperhead to roll back years and land battle of the veterans at Sandown

The brief lull in the National Hunt season between the busy Christmas schedule and the start of the trials for the big spring festivals gives some of the sport’s older hands a chance to chase a valuable prize in the Unibet Veterans’ Handicap Chase Series Final at Sandown, and while this year’s renewal has drawn a smaller field than usual, the nine runners bring plenty of high-class form to the fray.Eldorado Allen and Copperhead, who run for Joe Tizzard’s in-form stable, both have Grade Two wins over fences to their name, while Chambard was a 40-1 winner of the Kim Muir Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham festival in 2022 and Sam Brown took the valuable three-mile handicap on Grand National day at Aintree the same year.Smarty Wild and Remastered – the runner-up in the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury in 2022 – are other familiar names that many punters will remember with affection, but when it comes to picking the likeliest winner, the strong challenge from the Tizzard yard is impossible to ignore.Copperhead and Eldorado Allen ran solid prep races for this tilt at a £50,000 prize when second and third respectively over two and a half miles at Cheltenham last month, and both should improve for the return to three miles on Saturday.Copperhead (3