Luke Littler lands Berlin’s Big Fish as back-to-back 170s reel in top spot
Mark Strijbosch
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The Nuke Luke Littler did not just win Night Eight in Berlin, he detonated it. The teenager produced the kind of display that makes opponents stare into the middle distance and wonder whether the board had somehow been tilted against them. By the end of the night at the Uber Arena, Littler had beaten Stephen Bunting 6-3, edged Gerwyn Price 6-4 and then seen off Michael van Gerwen 6-4 in the final to climb to the top of the Premier League table.
And he did it with proper theatre. The headline moment, the clip that will be looped into oblivion, came in the final when Littler pinned back-to-back 170 checkouts against Van Gerwen. A Big Fish once is a crowd-rouser. Big Fish twice, in the same match, is just showing off with a straight face. We might have witnessed Littler’s best performance, and it's hard to argue when he averaged 106.36 in the final and cracked three ton-plus finishes against MVG.
Berlin belonged to Littler the moment he found his rhythm
His night began with a solid 6-3 win over Bunting, although the scoreline still flattered the loser slightly. Littler burst out of the traps, and while Bunting produced a lovely 167 checkout to stop the evening from turning into a whitewash, the result never truly looked in doubt. From there came another meeting with Price, a familiar recent storyline, and once again, Littler had the answers. Price made him work for it, but Littler closed the stronger to reach a third consecutive nightly final.
Then came Van Gerwen, and a final that briefly threatened to swing away from him. Littler raced into a 3-0 lead, was pegged back, then slammed the door with those two 170 finishes in the closing stages. It was part snarl, part swagger, part cold arithmetic. Van Gerwen did not play badly, but sometimes the other bloke is throwing as if he has been given tomorrow’s script.
The table now has a familiar name at the summit
This was Littler’s third nightly win in four weeks, worth another five points and enough to move him top at the halfway stage of the regular season. He now sits on 21 points, two clear of Jonny Clayton on 19. Gerwyn Price is next on 14, with Van Gerwen up to 13 after reaching the Berlin final. Luke Humphries has 11, Gian van Veen 9, Stephen Bunting 7 and Josh Rock finally got off the mark with his quarter-final win over Clayton.
The most ominous part for everyone else is that Littler himself felt this was the best he had played on a Premier League night. He said the new darts have left him feeling confident, and Berlin certainly backed that up. That is the slightly chilling bit for the rest of the field. This may not be the hot streak ending. It may be the one that is only just beginning.
Last week’s prediction said Littler would win in Berlin. He did. He also left with the table lead, the £10,000 prize, the little German bear trophy, and two enormous Big Fish finishes still flapping in Michael van Gerwen’s memory.
