{"id":255518,"date":"2026-01-21T04:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T04:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/255518\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T04:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T04:24:07","slug":"littler-back-to-winning-ways-in-saudi-arabia-masters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/255518\/","title":{"rendered":"Littler back to winning ways in Saudi Arabia Masters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Luke Littler gave himself an early birthday present by beating Michael van Gerwen 8-5 to win the inaugural Saudi Arabia Masters.<\/p>\n<p>The two-time world champion turns 19 on Wednesday and his celebrations began at Riyadh&#8217;s Global Theater before heading off for a Dubai break.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It didn\u2019t work out last week in Bahrain, but I\u2019m really glad to come over to Saudi Arabia for the first time and be the first winner,&#8221; Littler told ITV4.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Us players came over here and didn\u2019t know what to expect. It was a brilliant turnout, so thank you to you guys.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I will celebrate my birthday now. I will go to Dubai with my family and girlfriend and have three days off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Littler stormed into a 4-0 lead with the help of a 132 finish on the bullseye.<\/p>\n<p>Van Gerwen fought back to win three consecutive legs either side of the break before Littler stepped on the gas again.<\/p>\n<p>He hit six 180s and averaged 104.84, but missed out on the 100,000 dollars prize on offer for a nine-dart leg.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">LITTLER WINS IN RIYADH! \ud83d\udc4f<\/p>\n<p>Luke Littler is the inaugural Saudi Arabia Darts Masters champion!<\/p>\n<p>The world number one averages almost 105 to defeat Michael van Gerwen in a thrilling final! \ud83d\udd25<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfa <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/jB94EMFMFB\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/jB94EMFMFB<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RiyadhSeasonDarts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#RiyadhSeasonDarts<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qJTmDvhZQo\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/qJTmDvhZQo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OfficialPDC\/status\/2013701907198390338\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If that had been hit during the event, the player would have been given one dart at the bullseye to double their prize to 200,000 US dollars.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Obviously it\u2019s on everyone\u2019s minds, all the players, they know what\u2019s up for grabs,&#8221; said Littler.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you hit the first treble and then miss you are gutted, but hopefully we can come back here next year and someone will hit a nine-darter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Littler had avenged his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/darts\/2026\/0116\/1553528-price-knocks-world-champ-littler-out-of-bahrain-masters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bahrain Masters defeat to Gerwyn Price<\/a> \u2013 his first in 22 matches \u2013 with a 7-5 semi-final comeback win.<\/p>\n<p>Price had led 4-2 at the break but Littler stormed back after earlier repeating his World Championship final victory over Gian van Veen in the last eight.<\/p>\n<p>Van Gerwen had taken out Stephen Bunting and Nathan Aspinall en route to the final.<\/p>\n<p>But the most successful player in World Series history fell short of an 18th title win.<\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Littler gave himself an early birthday present by beating Michael van Gerwen 8-5 to win the inaugural&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-255518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}