Luke Littler has admitted he’s growing ‘sick’ to death at the sight of the double-12 that has denied him a nine-darter at this year’s Players Championship Finals.
The teenage darts sensation began his professional career in some style by hitting a nine-darter in his first tournament on the PDC Tour at the Bahrain Darts Masters.
He followed that up with three more nine-darters, including doing so in the Premier League final against Luke Humphries.
But the 17-year-old has been unable to add to his four nine-darters ever since that victory back in May.
Luke Littler has come close to hitting a nine-darter this weekend
ITV
Michael van Gerwen (2016, 2019) and Gerwyn Price (2022) are the only other players to have hit four nine-darters in a calendar year.
Littler came agonisingly close to breaking that record against Ritchie Edhouse in the second round of the Players Championship Finals.
He hit eight perfect darts during the match before missing the double-12 by mere millimetres.
The recently-crowned Grand Slam of Darts champion came close once again in his win over Danny Noppert, hitting seven perfect darts.
Each time Littler missed his nine-darter attempt, the Minehead crowed jeered and even booed sarcastically.
And Littler has now revealed he plans to change tactics when going for a nine-darter to bring an end to his misfortune.
He said: “If I hit the treble 20, it will go down to treble 17, double 15. I’m just sick of trying to hit that double 12 to be fair.
“I’d probably be happy with a few ProTour wins, a few Euro Tours but what I’ve done I can only thank myself, sponsors and obviously the practice I put in now.”
Luke Littler has been in top form at the Players Championship Finals
PDC
Littler averaged 104.7 and hit seven 180s in his win over Noppert with an impressive 50 per cent success rate on doubles.
The teen holds three of the top six highest averages for the tournament so far heading into his quarter-final contest against Mike De Decker.
And Littler admits he’s feeling confident with his darts in hand at the moment having extended his winning streak to 10 matches.
LATEST SPORT NEWS:
LITTLER ALMOST WINS IT WITH A NINE! 🤯
For the third time in just over a week, Luke Littler misses double 12 for a nine-darter!
It couldn’t have been any closer, but Littler eventually wraps up a 6-2 win over an impressive Ritchie Edhouse!#PCF2024 | R2 pic.twitter.com/oRlFxYe0Gr
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) November 23, 2024
“I’m very happy with this afternoon’s performance. Obviously when you win that you just focus onto tonight,” he added.
“Longer format you get the breaks involved which obviously suits me.
“When I went 2-0 up, I was like let’s go at least 4-1 up maybe even 5-0 at the first break.
“But Danny was playing well early on. Just after that first break I just go on these little bursts and no-one can touch me in between.”