At the 2024 World Championship final, Luke Littler, 17, reached the final for the first time and even led the match, only to be swept in five straight sets by Luke Humphries and lose 4–7. A year later, on the same stage, he ran the table 7–3 without giving his opponent a real look, becoming the youngest world champion in darts history. Here's the road he took to that title, and who he beat along the way.
The loss first: the 2024 final, reversed by Humphries
Littler reached his first World Championship final and carried a 4–2 lead into the match, only for Luke Humphries to win five sets in a row and turn it into a 4–7 defeat. He hadn't even turned 18 yet, and was already the most talked-about name in the whole tournament, just without the trophy.
The 2025 road to the title: who he beat along the way
The following year, Littler beat Ryan Meikle 3–1 in the second round, hitting the tournament's highest single-set three-dart average that match, 140.91. In the third round he took down Ian White 4–1. In the fourth round he had his tightest match of the run, edging Ryan Joyce 4–3.
Quarter-final and semi-final: he only got steadier
In the quarter-final he beat Nathan Aspinall 5–2, and in the semi-final he ran through Stephen Bunting 6–1, sailing into his second career final. His opponent was Michael van Gerwen, and this time he gave the man across the board nothing: opening with a 4–0 lead and closing it out 7–3.
17 years, 347 days: the youngest world champion in history
The moment the final ended, on 3 January 2025, Littler became the youngest world champion in darts history at 17 years and 347 days old. He also hit the most 180s of any player at that tournament: 76 in total, twenty more than runner-up van Gerwen. From runner-up to sweeping the tournament in a single year.
Every round of that title run was a real fight. If you want to work toward staying composed in those moments, see how PPD/MPR is calculated and trained in our PPD/MPR training guide; want to know how pros reset when things aren't clicking? See how darts pros adjust. AI DARTS boards run 24 hours, menu here.