Bahrain Darts Masters: Luke Littler becomes world champion with winning start as Rob Cross suffers shock loss | News about darts
World champion Luke Littler began his defense of the Bahrain Darts Masters with a 6-3 win over Lawrence Ilagan to book his place in the quarter-finals.
Littler is looking to retain his maiden title on the PDC circuit, just weeks after being crowned the youngest world champion at Alexandra Palace aged just 17.
It is also the tournament in which he hit a nine-deterrent against Nathan Aspinall in the 2024 quarter-finals, his first of four during the year.
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Emma Paton, Mark Webster and Richard Ashdown discuss whether Littler can break Phil Taylor’s record of 16 World Darts Championship titles
‘Nuke’ was in control throughout his opening encounter at the Bahrain International Circuit and managed to survive a mid-race battle from Ilagan, a silky 142 cash plus two layup breaks helping him fight back the momentum.
Now he will face Gerwyn Price who put in a good performance with a 6-3 win over Ally Pally crowd favorite Lok Yin Lee.
Paolo Nebrida claimed a shock victory over Rob Cross in Bahrain
The other big story of the night saw Paolo Nebrida put his name in the record books as he became only the second player from the Asian Tour to beat a PDC player in the World Series 6-3 over Rob Cross.
Cross looked out of sorts and had a terrible time in the doubles, a shot break and the loss in a 29-dart leg that dropped him to 3-1.
From there, Nebrida did the hard work and his clutch 116 fund was followed by 62 at the top for a winning toss break that gave the Filipino player his own darts story.
World No. 1 Luke Humphries put in an excellent performance as he won 6-0 over Abdulla Saeed.
Humphries came out ready to entertain the crowd and his cashes of 151, 100 and 141 did just that, the ‘Cool Hand’ hitting 180s with ease down the road.
Fourth seed Stephen Bunting closed out a quarterfinal matchup against Chris Dobbie with Nitin Kumar winning 6-2.
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Watch as Stephen Bunting’s son cheers his dad on for a quarter-final win over Peter Wright
Bunting came out firing, 142 and 122 cashes plus three big throwing breaks that helped him take control and send a statement that his form isn’t going anywhere after his run to the semi-finals of the World Darts Championship.
Dobey also made his mark with a 6-0 win over Bassem Mahmoud, while Peter Wright put in the work early to seal a 6-3 win over Alexis Toylo and move into the first round for the third consecutive year.
The final match of the evening saw Nathan Aspinall produced a professional performance to complete a 6-2 win against Xiaochen Zong.
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2025-01-16 17:35:00
