{"id":570636,"date":"2026-05-07T07:11:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/570636\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T07:11:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:11:19","slug":"luke-littlers-rival-withdraws-from-match-after-just-two-legs-at-players-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/570636\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Littler’s rival withdraws from match after just two legs at Players Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke Littler’s rival Ricardo Pietreczko withdrew from his opening-round Players Championship clash with Jeffrey de Zwaan, lasting just two legs before conceding a walkover.<\/p>\n

The German number two was averaging below 60 points when he pulled out of the event.<\/p>\n

No official explanation has been provided for the early exit, though German commentator Fabian Dippold pointed to dartitis as the likely cause.<\/p>\n

Dartitis is a psychological condition that impacts players’ ability to release the dart smoothly.<\/p>\n

\"Ricardo<\/p>\n

Ricardo Pietreczko has withdrawn from a match after just two legs<\/p>\n

| PA<\/p>\n

Pietreczko’s troubles began before his withdrawal, having suffered a 6-4 defeat to fellow German Kai Gotthardt just 24 hours earlier with an average of only 80.46 points.<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that the German has been battling issues with his throwing action since the European Tour event in Munich.<\/p>\n

In response to these difficulties, he has experimented with changes to both his grip and release technique.<\/p>\n

His last match abandonment came in 2024, though on that occasion, wrist pain hindered his contest.<\/p>\n

\"Ricardo<\/p>\n

Pietreczko exited the match, averaging less than 60<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

The timing of Pietreczko’s struggles raises concerns ahead of the World Cup of Darts, where he is scheduled to represent Germany alongside Martin Schindler in six weeks.<\/p>\n

Pietreczko first came to widespread attention following a heated confrontation with Luke Littler at the 2024 Belgian Darts Open semi-final, where the teenage sensation defeated him 7-3.<\/p>\n

The German approached Littler aggressively after the match, nearly clashing heads with the then 17-year-old in a tense exchange.<\/p>\n

Littler later wrote on a darts Facebook group: “No idea what I did wrong, no idea what he said. He said something then don’t do it again.”<\/p>\n

\"Luke<\/p>\n

Littler previously had a bust-up with the German<\/p>\n

| PA<\/p>\n

Pietreczko subsequently branded the Warrington star arrogant on social media.<\/p>\n

The pair have met twice in competition, with Littler emerging victorious on both occasions.<\/p>\n

The world number one recently revealed that he has modified his Instagram privacy settings<\/a> to shield himself from online trolls.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old, who manages his own social media presence, regularly shares darts and football-related content with his followers.<\/p>\n

\"Luke<\/p>\n

Littler recently revealed that he has modified his Instagram privacy settings<\/p>\n

| GETTY<\/p>\n

His online following has exploded since bursting onto the scene at the PDC World Darts Championship in December 2023, when he had just 4,000 Instagram followers.<\/p>\n

That figure has now soared to over two million as the two-time world champion’s profile has reached global proportions.<\/p>\n

Instagram allows users to disable commenting on posts, a feature Littler activated some time ago to reduce the volume of responses flooding his phone.<\/p>\n

The setting also helped him avoid considerable negativity following his on-stage altercation with Dutch opponent Van Veen at the Premier League event in Manchester on April 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Littler’s rival Ricardo Pietreczko withdrew from his opening-round Players Championship clash with Jeffrey de Zwaan, lasting just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[17321,17322,50,2331,217,101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-570636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-darts","tag-luke-littler","tag-news","tag-sgg","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}