![\"Luke](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4JVC08V_AFP__20250728__DPPI_21125023_291__v1__HighRes__Darts2025BetfredWorldMatchplay_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nLuke Littler.
\nPhoto: photosport\n<\/p>\n
England’s Luke Littler thrashed Dutchman Gian van Veen to win the PDC World Darts title for the second successive year in front of a raucous Alexandra Palace crowd.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old dropped the first set in the best-of-13-set showdown but hit back to stamp his authority on Van Veen who had no answer to Littler’s relentless scoring.<\/p>\n
World number one Littler never looked troubled, apart from during the brief appearance of a wasp, banging in 180s and high checkouts as he wrapped up a 7-1 victory to claim the one million pounds ($NZ2.33 million) first prize.<\/p>\n
He is the first player to win back-to-back titles since Scotland’s Gary Anderson in 2016.<\/p>\n
Littler’s victory charge was briefly interrupted during a dazzling spell of nine successive legs as the board needed to be replaced after Van Veen cut his hand and left a small blob of blood on the surface.<\/p>\n
Van Veen stopped the rot to win a leg in the eighth set but the laser-like focus of Littler was unbroken as he turned the final stages of the contest into a procession, sealing the title with a 147 checkout.<\/p>\n
“The first set I wasn’t happy but I kicked on from there and said to myself give it time and you’ll find it and it all went to plan,” Littler said on stage.<\/p>\n
“Credit to Gian, he’s had a great tournament. He was there every set so I had to take my chances.”<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old Van Veen beat Anderson to reach his first world championship final and initially looked dangerous.<\/p>\n
Having come from behind in the first set to take it after Littler missed a double, Van Veen then went 2-0 ahead in the second set with checkouts of 145 and 127.<\/p>\n
Van Veen narrowly missed a 127 checkout that would have given him a two-set lead and that proved the turning point as his dream of emulating former Dutch champions Michael van Gerwen and Raymond van Barneveld evaporated.<\/p>\n
– Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Littler. Photo: photosport England’s Luke Littler thrashed Dutchman Gian van Veen to win the PDC World Darts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-215646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215646","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=215646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}