{"id":215571,"date":"2026-01-04T00:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/215571\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T00:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:27:09","slug":"luke-littler-wins-back-to-back-darts-world-championship-titles-with-dominant-display-over-gian-van-veen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/215571\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Littler wins back-to-back darts world championship titles with dominant display over Gian van Veen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Littler becomes just the fourth back-to-back Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) champion alongside Phil Taylor, Adrian Lewis and Gary Anderson. He is also the first since Anderson completed the feat in 2016.<\/p>\n

His second victory in only his third appearance at the London tournament means that only Taylor, with 14, and Michael van Gerwen, on three, have more PDC world titles than Littler.<\/p>\n

He also joins just Taylor, John Part, Lewis, Anderson, van Gerwen and Peter Wright in having won the biggest prize in all of darts on more than one occasion.<\/p>\n

What promised to be a tight contest between two of the sports\u2019 young stars proved anything but as the Englishman was relentless, barely giving his opponent a chance after losing the opening set.<\/p>\n

Littler threw 16 180s, 19 140s, a 46% success rate on the doubles, with four ton-plus finishes including a 170 and a 147 checkout to seal the win.<\/p>\n

Both players missed multiple darts to claim the opening set, before van Veen pinged double four to hold throw. The Dutchman then missed a shot at double eight to claim the second, but missed and Littler capitalised by taking the set and he didn\u2019t look back.<\/p>\n

The result caps off a stunning 12 months for Littler after he won his first world title. He\u2019s since gone on to capture the UK Open, World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and Grand Slam along with success at the Australian and New Zealand Darts Masters.<\/p>\n

While it was a disappointing result for van Veen, he can hold his head high after a breakthrough tournament where he has risen to No 3 in the world, which will likely see him appear in Auckland later this year.<\/p>\n

His new ranking means he\u2019s now the top-ranked Dutch player in the world, surpassing van Gerwen who had held the title since 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe played phenomenal,\u201d van Veen told Sky Sport. \u201cHe put me under pressure every leg, every set, and I missed too many chances today to make it a game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a fantastic player which is why he\u2019s world number one by a margin now. That\u2019s why he\u2019s back-to-back world champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Francis<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Littler becomes just the fourth back-to-back Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) champion alongside Phil Taylor, Adrian Lewis and Gary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[28358,59740,3390,18239,45426,32565,41309,130281,6440,5904,130279,1861,130278,102883,3025,13617,111,139,69,1523,9099,106462,213,21638,11427,130280,18457,6202,102,377],"class_list":["post-215571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-alongside","tag-backtoback","tag-best","tag-championship","tag-darts","tag-display","tag-dominant","tag-etch","tag-ever","tag-final","tag-gian","tag-history","tag-littler","tag-luke","tag-most","tag-name","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-performances","tag-produced","tag-sports","tag-titles","tag-van","tag-veen","tag-winning","tag-wins","tag-with","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}