Luke Littler will sacrifice the end of his Christmas Day festivities to spend hours practicing on the dart board. The 16-year-old is into the third round of the World Darts Championship and believes he can go all the way, having shot up to fourth favourite for the tournament after a pair of imperious performances.
Littler was crowned World Youth Champion at the end of November, and he has carried that momentum with him to Alexandra Palace. So far, the youngster has dropped only one set across wins over Christian Kist and 29th seed Andrew Gilding.
Matt Campbell is up next on December 27, and Littler is taking no chances in regards to his preparation. “It’s been a crazy few days,” he said. “Christmas is going to be very different.
“We’ll do the same thing a family always does and then when I finish my dinner I will get on the board for a good few hours. I would normally wait for the dinner to be cooked, go on the Xbox, call my mates, speak to them, but I’ll be on the board.”
Littler averaged a mind-boggling 106 against Kist and followed that up with a solid, if unspectacular 92.7 average against Gilding. Some bookmakers now have the 2007-born prodigy down as the fourth favourite for the title, ahead of reigning champion Michael Smith.
That level of faith in Littler’s talent is also held by the youngster himself. “If my A-game is there I don’t see why [I can’t win it],” he continued. “But I have just got to beat what is in front of me.
Littler is in the same section of the draw as darts icon Raymond van Barneveld, who kick-started his own Ally Pally campaign with a 3-1 win over Radek Szaganski on Friday evening.
And ‘Barney’ was full of praise for the 16-year-old he may be on track to face in round four. “He is playing awesome darts,” said the Dutchman. “If I want to watch darts, I want to see a guy like him. I like fast, I like finishing, I like celebrations – he’s a character.”
