Bahrain Darts Masters: Luke Littler gets world title on winning start as Rob Cross suffers shock defeat | News about darts
Reigning world champion Luke Littler began his defense of the Bahrain Darts Masters with a 6-3 win over Lawrence Ilagan to secure a place in the quarter-finals.
Littler is looking to retain his first title on the PDC circuit, just weeks after being crowned the youngest world champion at Alexandra Palace aged just 17.
It’s also the tournament where he hit a nine-darter against Nathan Aspinall in the 2024 quarter-finals, the first of four this year.
‘Nuke’ was in control during his opener at the Bahrain International Circuit and managed to survive Ilagan’s mid-match comeback with a silky checkout of 142 plus two stoppages to help him deal with the momentum.
Now they will face each other Gerwyn Price who put up a solid showing with a 6-3 win over Ally Pally crowd favorite Lok Yin Lee.
The second big story of the night Paolo Nebrida put his name in the record books as he became only the second player from the Asian Tour to beat a PDC player in the World Cup with a 6-3 win over Rob Cross.
Cross looked strange and had a terrible time in the doubles, a break and a loss in the 29-dart leg saw him back to 3-1.
After that, Nebrida did the heavy lifting and a clutch 116 was followed by a 62 at the top for a winning break throw that awarded the Filipino player his own piece of darts history.
World number 1 Luke Humphries delivered a stellar performance en route to a 6-0 victory over Abdullah Saeed.
Humphries came out ready to entertain the crowd and his charges of 151, 100 and 141 did just that, ‘Cool Hand’ reaching 180 with ease en route.
The fourth seed Stephen Bunting booked a quarter-final showdown against Chris Dobey with a 6-2 dominance by Nitin Kumar.
Bunting fired, 142 and 122 disposals plus three big breaks to help him take control and send a statement that his form was going nowhere after entering the semi-finals of the World Darts Championship.
Dobey also made his mark with a 6-0 win against Basem Mahmood against Whitewash, while Peter Wright put in the work early to cement a 6-3 victory over Alexis Toylo to advance through the first round for the third consecutive year.
The last game of the evening was seen Nathan Aspinall he delivered a professional performance and closed out a 6-2 win against Xiaochen Zong.
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