Luke Littler opened his bid for a second Bahrain Darts Masters title with a superb 6-1 success against darting icon Paul Lim, as reigning champion Stephen Bunting also advanced in Sakhir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Day One of the year’s opening World Series of Darts event saw all eight PDC superstars progress to Finals Day, with Littler and world number two Luke Humphries delivering stand-out displays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Newly-crowned two-time World Champion Littler – competing in his first game since retaining the Sid Waddell Trophy – averaged over 106 to topple Lim in a clash of the darting generations on Thursday, producing a spectacular 170 checkout in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pair exchanged holds in the early stages of the contest, before Littler raced to victory in blistering fashion, following up the 170 with a clinical 121 finish in leg five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Paul’s been performing well for many, many years,”\u00a0reflected 2024 winner Littler, who paid tribute to the man 53 years his senior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He’s a class act and he’s still going strong, but thankfully I was able to kick on and get the win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s always good to be back in Bahrain. This is the start of the new season for us, and you want to start the year off right, with a title.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Humphries also impressed at the Exhibition World Bahrain, averaging 103.66 to register a third consecutive whitewash victory over Host Nation representative Abdulla Saeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m pretty happy with my performance,”\u00a0admitted Humphries, who will play Nathan Aspinall for a place in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I want to come here and start the season a little bit better than I usually do, and I’ve tried my best to keep in the flow with my practice this year.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere, defending champion Bunting swept aside Ryusei Azemoto to begin his bid for back-to-back titles in Bahrain, punishing a profligate display from the Japanese star to seal a 6-2 success.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bunting’s reward will be a tussle against three-time World Champion Michael van Gerwen, who defied a spirited display from PDC Asian Tour winner Alexis Toylo to open his title challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dutchman reeled off three straight legs from 4-3 adrift to overcome the methodical left-hander, as he sets his sights on a record-extending 17th\u00a0World Series of Darts crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Van Gerwen was joined in the quarter-finals by his fellow countrymen Gian van Veen and Danny Noppert, who will go head-to-head on Finals Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World Championship finalist Van Veen kicked off his campaign with a 6-2 victory over Man Lok Leung, winning five straight legs to dump out Hong Kong’s World Cup quarter-finalist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noppert, meanwhile, ran out a comprehensive 6-1 winner against Bahrain’s Basem Mahmood, as he enjoyed a winning return on the World Series stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gerwyn Price and Aspinall completed the quarter-final line-up, confirming their progress with 6-4 wins against Motomu Sakai and Lourence Ilagan respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two-time runner-up Price survived a scare in Thursday’s opener, firing in a superb 11-darter to set up a fascinating encounter against Littler in the last eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aspinall later denied PDC Asian Champion Ilagan by the same scoreline, in a repeat of their clash at last month’s World Darts Championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RESULTS Luke Littler opened his bid for a second Bahrain Darts Masters title with a superb 6-1 success against<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8012,"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-8011","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\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2.jpg",2000,1280,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2-300x192.jpg",300,192,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2-768x492.jpg",640,410,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2-1024x655.jpg",640,409,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2-1536x983.jpg",1536,983,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2.jpg",2000,1280,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2-590x410.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\/2026\/01\/2026BDMR1_LittlerLim2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8011","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=8011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8013,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8011\/revisions\/8013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Round One<\/strong>: Gerwyn Price 6-4 Motomu Sakai; Gian van Veen 6-2 Man Lok Leung; Danny Noppert 6-1 Basem Mahmood; Nathan Aspinall 6-4 Lourence Ilagan; Luke Humphries 6-0 Abdulla Saeed; Luke Littler 6-1 Paul Lim; Michael van Gerwen 6-4 Alexis Toylo; Stephen Bunting 6-2 Ryusei Azemoto<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"