Luke Littler produced a series of mesmerising displays to clinch his first Players Championship title of the season on Wednesday, which confirms his qualification for next month’s Players Championship Finals in Minehead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Littler \u2013 fresh from lifting the World Grand Prix title on Sunday \u2013 continued his magnificent form to celebrate Players Championship 32 success on a thrilling day of action in Wigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The World Champion found himself outside of the provisional qualification places for Minehead ahead of Wednesday’s play, although he rectified that with a sensational march to victory at the Robin Park Leisure Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following 6-4 wins over Dylan Slevin and Jeffrey de Graaf, Littler stormed through to the last 16 with a whitewash win over Adam Lipscombe, aided by an average of 102.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Littler then produced consecutive 130, 120 and 146 finishes to overturn a 3-0 deficit against Adam Hunt, before reeling off five straight legs from 3-1 down to sink Rhys Griffin in the last eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Warrington wonderkid produced further heroics in his semi-final clash against top seed Stephen Bunting, winning five legs without reply from 4-2 adrift to prevail with a 109 average to Bunting’s 107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This set up a fascinating showdown against surprise finalist Dennie Olde Kalter, who lost his opening 20 matches on the PDC ProTour earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dutchman drew first blood in Wednesday’s showpiece with a terrific 121 finish, but Littler soon seized control, following up a 12-dart riposte with 152 and 101 checkouts to lead 3-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Olde Kalter doubled his tally in leg six, only for Littler to follow up his second 101 finish with back-to-back 11-darters to move to the cusp of victory at 7-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The World Champion then crashed in his tenth 180 of the contest to set up a match-winning opportunity, before completing a 72 combination to prevail with a magnificent 110.73 average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m really happy to come away with a win,”\u00a0reflected Littler, who is now \u00a311,000 above the qualification cut-off with two events remaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m a bit angry it was only a 15-darter to finish with, because I knew my average felt really good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“At the start of the day it was just about getting through the early stages, and you need to believe in yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I know I’ve got the capabilities to come from behind in matches and that’s what I did yet again today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Trying to qualify for Minehead was at the back of my mind. I had seen some people on social media say I wasn’t going to make it, but I’m very happy with the way I played today.”
Littler’s exploits stole the headlines in Wigan, but it was also a landmark day for Olde Kalter, who claimed a host of big-name scalps to pocket the \u00a310,000 runner-up prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The unheralded Dutchman had lost 25 of his 29 opening round matches on the ProTour this year, but he underlined his credentials with a hat-trick of wins over his fellow countrymen Marvin van Velzen, Niels Zonneveld and Dirk van Duijvenbode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Victories over former Grand Slam champion Scott Waites and Premier League star Nathan Aspinall followed, before he halted Jermaine Wattimena’s bid for back-to-back titles with a resounding 7-3 win in their all-Dutch semi-final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That brought an end to Wattimena’s 12-match winning run in Wigan, after the European Championship runner-up posted ton-topping averages in wins over Rob Cross and Chris Dobey in the last 16 and quarter-finals respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere, Bunting also featured in the semi-finals for a second day in succession, following up a six-leg demolition of Martin Lukeman with emphatic 6-2 wins over young stars Niko Springer and Wessel Nijman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier in the day, Sweden’s Andreas Harrysson produced perfection in his round one tie against Radek Szaganski, just 24 hours on from Aspinall’s incredible brace of nine-dart finishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following this week’s double-header, the PDC ProTour season will conclude later this month, as Players Championships 33-34 take place at the Robin Park Leisure Centre on October 29-30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The race for Players Championship Finals qualification will dominate the headlines, as world number one Luke Humphries and two-time World Champion Peter Wright battle to confirm their spots in the 64-player field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seven-time champion Michael van Gerwen looks set to miss out on next month’s extravaganza, with the Dutchman not expected to compete in the upcoming ProTour double-header due to family reasons.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last 16<\/strong> Quarter-Finals<\/strong> Final<\/strong> Luke Littler produced a series of mesmerising displays to clinch his first Players Championship title of the season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4432,"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":[44],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-4678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-darts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed.jpg",2000,1333,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed-1024x682.jpg",640,426,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed.jpg",2000,1333,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WGPQF_Littler08_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678","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=4678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4679,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678\/revisions\/4679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Stephen Bunting 6-2 Niko Springer
Wessel Nijman 6-2 Cor Dekker
Luke Littler 6-4 Adam Hunt
Rhys Griffin 6-4 Mickey Mansell
Chris Dobey 6-2 Ritchie Edhouse
Jermaine Wattimena 6-4 Rob Cross
Dennie Olde Kalter 6-1 Scott Waites
Nathan Aspinall 6-5 Damon Heta<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephen Bunting 6-2 Wessel Nijman
Luke Littler 6-3 Rhys Griffin
Jermaine Wattimena 6-5 Chris Dobey
Dennie Olde Kalter 6-4 Nathan Aspinall
Semi-Finals<\/strong>
Luke Littler 7-4 Stephen Bunting
Dennie Olde Kalter 7-3 Jermaine Wattimena<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luke Littler 8-2 Dennie Olde Kalter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"