Newly-crowned Grand Slam of Darts champion Luke Littler continued his red-hot type with a shocking six-leg blitz of world No 4 Rob Cross within the first spherical of the Gamers Championship Finals in Minehead.
The 17-year-old was in imperious type to dispatch Cross 6-0 in simply over quarter-hour.
He ensured he was nearly unplayable, averaging 112.73 to start his marketing campaign – the second highest within the event’s historical past.
Littler can be joined in spherical two by defending world champion Luke Humphries who cruised previous Gabriel Clemens with a 6-2 win.
Nonetheless many large names is not going to characteristic within the subsequent spherical after a raft of shocks on Friday noticed family names together with Michael van Gerwen, Gerwyn Worth, Stephen Bunting and Chris Dobey knocked out.
Van Gerwen particularly languishes in a calendar 12 months and not using a televised title for simply the second time since 2012.
Luke Littler celebrates with the Eric Bristow Trophy after successful the Grand Slam of Darts (pic: PDC)
The star of the evening undoubtedly was as soon as once more Littler, for whom there’s lengthy strategy to go because the format is relentless, with a number of matches to barter on the Saturday and Sunday.
Nonetheless has proven little signal of slowing down after successful his tenth title of his debut 12 months on the PDC Tour and a 3rd main title of the 12 months, certainly setting a marker to be thought-about one of many favourites for subsequent month’s World Championships, reside on Sky Sports activities.
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