Luke Littler ended Mike De Decker’s reign as World Grand Prix champion to set up a blockbuster quarter-final tussle against Gerwyn Price in Leicester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After winning through a record-breaking contest against Gian van Veen on Tuesday, Littler continued his pursuit of World Grand Prix glory with a dominant 3-0 win over reigning champion De Decker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The World Champion was always in control against the below-par Belgian, conjuring up a sensational 170 checkout to breeze through to Friday’s quarter-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
De Decker was unable to generate any momentum throughout, with Littler converting clinical 66, 91 and 95 combinations prior to his show-stopping 170.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Mike definitely wasn’t at his best tonight, so I had to jump on it early on,” reflected Littler, who is yet to drop a set in this year’s tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“My starting doubles were very good once again, and knocking out any reigning champion is a big achievement. Now it’s on to the quarter-finals. Hopefully I can go all the way, but you cannot afford to look too far ahead.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Littler’s reward is a tantalising showdown against 2020 champion Price, who dispatched Josh Rock in similarly comprehensive style at the Mattioli Arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Welshman reeled off eight consecutive legs to sweep aside the Northern Irishman, averaging over 100 in each of the last two sets to maintain his bid for a second double-start crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I just looked at the averages and I thought I played better than that,”\u00a0revealed Price, one of three former champions left in the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m playing well. I probably need to up my scoring game because Luke is scoring really well, but if I put him under pressure, then it will be a good game. Luke is playing fantastic darts. I cannot take that away from him, but I’m here to win, and I’m not scared of anybody!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jonny Clayton and Dirk van Duijvenbode will also go head-to-head for a semi-final spot, following wins over Luke Woodhouse and Daryl Gurney earlier in the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clayton defied a mid-game slump to run out a 3-1 winner against Woodhouse, pinning nine of his 18 attempts at a finishing double to advance to his third World Grand Prix quarter-final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We both struggled at times. Luke gave me chances, and when that happens, you have to take them,”\u00a0admitted the 2021 champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Obviously I’m happy to win, but I need to get back on that practice board ready for tomorrow, and I will need a better performance than that. Dirk is playing well, but I know what I have to do, and that’s all that counts.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Van Duijvenbode booked his place in the last eight with an emphatic straight-sets win over 2017 champion Gurney, averaging 96.4 to progress to his first televised quarter-final of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dutchman won the opening eight legs of the contest without reply, before halting any prospect of a Gurney fightback with a magnificent match-winning 158 checkout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Usually when I play Daryl, he always finds ways to beat me,”\u00a0claimed 2020 runner-up Van Duijvenbode, who had lost four of his last five meetings against the Northern Irishman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Today he had three or four chances to hit ton-plus finishes, but he was not doing it, so I did! I got a bit nervous at the end because I could see him coming back, but to produce that 12-darter to win it made me very happy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The quarter-finals will take place on a bumper Friday evening session in Leicester, as Littler and Price renew their rivalry in the evening’s headline act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere, Clayton takes on Van Duijvenbode, world number one Luke Humphries plays Scottish star Cameron Menzies, while 2016 runner-up Gary Anderson faces Dutch number two Danny Noppert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Round Two matches<\/strong>: Dirk van Duijvenbode 3-0 Daryl Gurney (3-0, 3-0, 3-2); Jonny Clayton 3-1 Luke Woodhouse (3-1, 0-3, 3-1, 3-1); Luke Littler 3-0 Mike De Decker (3-1, 3-1, 3-0); Gerwyn Price 3-0 Josh Rock (3-1, 3-0, 3-0)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Luke Littler ended Mike De Decker’s reign as World Grand Prix champion to set up a blockbuster quarter-final<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-4387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-darts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed.jpg",2000,1333,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed-1024x682.jpg",640,426,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed.jpg",2000,1333,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPR2_Littler01_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4389,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387\/revisions\/4389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}