Luke Littler appears to try new tactic with World Darts champion, 18, ‘hating' former favourite double

The Sun

4 hours ago

DARTS fans reckon Luke Littler has seemingly abandoned his trademark shot selection.
The 18-year-old became famed for routinely nailing Double 10 with ease during his miraculous rise to world title contention.
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But judging from his most recent outings, including at the Poland Open, the 18-year-old has seemingly changed tact and opted not to go for Double 10 as much.
The change hasn't gone unnoticed by fans, one of whom wrote on X: " Luke Littler hates Tops and D10 for some reason now.
"Going for 6-D8 on 22 is strange of him, but going for the 25 on 57 to leave D16 (On 82, first dart already in the 25) instead of just playing 17 Tops is incredible.
"Btw, on the 57 he's hit the BULL to leave 7."
Another said: "Littler playing class as always, acted a bit wierd today tho, can only assume he was having a bad day on tops and d10.
And another said: "He might try to switch the doubles because tops didn't go so well the last few months."
One darts fan theorised: "I wonder if he's trying to get better at D16 ready for the Grand Prix.
"Last year he kept going for tops and didn't do great, whereas many others get in on D16."
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Luke Littler prize money breakdown
Here is all the prize money Luke Littler has won so far after being crowned 2025 PDC World Darts Championship winner:
World Championship 2025 - £500,000
World Championship 2024 - £200,000
Grand Slam of Darts 2024 - £150,000
European Tour - £91,000
Player Championships events - £71,500
Players Championship final runner-up - £60,000
UK Open 2023 + 2024 - £17,500
World Matchplay - £10,000
World Grand Prix - £7,500
European Championship - £7,500
(Unranked) Premier League Darts - £315,000
TOTAL: £1.43 million
Littler began his defence of the Poland Darts Masters title on Friday with a 6-4 win over the Czech Republic's Karel Sedlack.
He'll be back in action this evening in an all-English clash against Nathan Aspinall.
Littler recently revealed he's still tormented by the pain of letting the Darts Premier League title slip through his grasp.
He said: "I'll probably say the Premier League final against Luke [Humphries].
'Yeah, because I was 5-2 up and I knew we would go off for a break after 10 legs, so we've still got 3 legs to play.
'So, I said to myself, if you go 7-3 up or 6-4 up, then I'm happy, but I went into the break at 5-5.
'I was fuming and then he just went on and won it.
'He definitely did up his game, because I'm pretty sure after the break, I think he went 7-5 up.
'So he came on stage, won the next two legs. I was just thinking what was going on.'