{"id":629068,"date":"2026-09-19T00:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T00:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/629068\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T00:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T00:42:11","slug":"world-series-of-darts-finals-2026-luke-littler-survives-scare-to-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/629068\/","title":{"rendered":"World Series of Darts Finals 2026: Luke Littler survives scare to progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

World number one Luke Littler survived a first-round scare to overcome Danny Noppert in a thrilling World Series of Darts Finals match in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old, seeking his second World Series Finals victory after 2024, recently whitewashed the Dutchman, who is a former UK Open champion, 6-0 on his way to winning the Czech Darts Open.<\/a><\/p>\n

There would be no repeat here as Noppert won three straight legs to take a 3-1 lead.<\/p>\n

Having levelled the match at 3-3, Littler turned to the crowd and tapped his ears in response to boos.<\/p>\n

Despite the teenager then busting his score, Noppert failed to take advantage and retake the lead.<\/p>\n

With the score 4-4, Littler let out a passionate roar towards the crowd after a wonderful 95 checkout, with Noppert left on 46. The finish brought him within one leg of victory, which he comfortably secured.<\/p>\n

Littler will now face fellow Englishman Nathan Aspinall, who defeated Raymond Smith 6-4.<\/p>\n

Wales’ Gerwyn Price beat Brody Klinge 6-4 to progress, but was made to work after taking control at 5-0.<\/p>\n

Klinge avoided a whitewash and then grew in confidence, turning what once looked like a thrashing into a one-leg deficit.<\/p>\n

However, Price comfortably closed out the match and will now face Jim Long.<\/p>\n

Motomu Sakai beat England’s Callan Rydz 6-5 to progress, while James Wade overcame Damon Heta 6-5.<\/p>\n

Wales’ Jonny Clayton will face Sakai after he beat Maik Kuivenhoven 6-3.<\/p>\n

Defending champion Michael van Gerwen fell to a 6-5 defeat by Daryl Gurney on Thursday, while world number two Luke Humphries will face Dirk van Duijvenbode after emerging victorious<\/a> against Wattimena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World number one Luke Littler survived a first-round scare to overcome Danny Noppert in a thrilling World Series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-629068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629068","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=629068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}