Luke Littler admitted some disappointment despite overcoming a brilliant effort from Ryan Joyce, who the teenager admitted threw everything at him, to reach the World Darts Championship quarter-finals on Monday night.
The 17-year-old title favourite had to fight hard to down ‘Relentless’ but ultimately won an epic encounter which yielded 21 180s – with 14 coming from Littler – in a 4-3 success at Alexandra Palace.
There were fears that Littler could crash out in the fourth round just 24 hours after reigning champion Luke Humphries was beaten by Peter Wright. But last year’s runner-up averaged 111 in the decisive set to avoid an upset.
And Littler let out a huge roar at the end as he scheduled a New Year’s Day showdown with Nathan Aspinall. But he said in his post-match interview he was disappointed not to end 2024 with a record fifth nine-darter inside a single year.
He told Sky Sports: “A few of the legs I started off with a 177 and thought, ‘there’s a treble 19 out the way.’ Obviously I don’t end the year with five nine-darters but hopefully I can start the year off strong and get a nine for everyone.”
The Warrington boy wonder of darts only needed one nine-darter to go past the record he shares with Gerwyn Price and Michael van Gerwen but will now have to take another attempt in 2025.
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