Teen sensation Luke Littler has maintained his blistering Alexandra Palace form by defeating Fermanagh’s Brendan Dolan 5-1 in the World Darts Championship quarter final.
The 16-year-old got off to a slow start, by his standards, in losing the first two legs of the first set but he came from behind to win the set and from there, he never looked back.
The Nuke reeled off the the next three sets to storm into a 4-0 advantage and while Dolan struck back, taking the fifth set, that was as good as it got for him.
In the end, the stats neatly summarised Littler’s supremacy with the Cheshire native ending his day with a 101 average, which comfortably exceeded Dolan’s figure of 86.
From a doubles perspective, the tournament debutante took out 16 of 34 attempts while Dolan only got an opportunity to finish eighteen times, taking eight of them.
Littler now advances to Tuesday’s semi-final where he will take on fellow Englishman Rob Cross who, back in 2018, made a sensational World Championship debut of his own, when he won the tournament outright.
Having beaten Chris Dobey in the afternoon’s opening game on Monday, Cross qualified for his first semi-final since that 2018 triumph. He pulled off some heroics of his own on the Alexandra Palace stage, having come from four sets down to stun Dobey 5-4.
After the game, Littler admitted that he’s daring to dream of winning the title.
“If I keep it up I’ve got a good chance. Now I’m dreaming. I’m two games away. I’m definitely thinking about lifting the title,” he said.
"Now I am dreaming, I'm two games away" 🤩
Luke Littler – the youngest player ever to reach the semi-final of the World Darts Championship 👏 pic.twitter.com/tTCDHRWUCt
— Sky Sports Darts (@SkySportsDarts) January 1, 2024
Littler, who becomes the youngest ever World Championship semi-finalist, even seemed to have been stung by the Ally Pally wasp during the game but that couldn’t stop him.
“I seen it fluttering about there, but I had to focus and get over the line.”
Three-time World Champion John Part hailed Littler for his board management and says that, despite his tender years, he has a great knowledge of the game.
“Dolan’s overall scoring level wasn’t up to what it had been in his previous matches, and that wasn’t going to beat Luke Littler,” said the Canadien on Sky Sports.
“Luke knows what he’s doing. He’s intelligent.
“He’s young, but he’s not new to darts. He’s been winning a long time, and he knows the game.”
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