There’s a certain kind of perfection that only exists in darts — nine darts, 501 points, not a single throw wasted. Luke Littler pulled it off in the very first leg of his World Matchplay match against Nathan Aspinall at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, and the place came unglued for the second straight year.
Then the kid nearly did it again.
According to Yahoo Sports, which cited The Sporting News, Littler found his nine perfect darts to open the match, sending the Winter Gardens crowd into a frenzy. In the very next leg, he narrowly missed a bullseye that would have completed a 170 checkout — the maximum finish in darts, the kind of shot that makes grown men in polo shirts lose their minds. A few legs later, he had another legitimate run at a second nine-darter and missed the double on his ninth dart.
Sky Sports’ coverage corroborated the sequence, with headlines noting Aspinall’s “hilarious reaction” to Littler’s near-miss on the second nine-darter and a separate clip titled “Let’s all calm down!” — presumably the reaction in the commentary booth after the opening leg. Sky Sports also reported that Aspinall himself landed a 170 checkout during the match, a finish the outlet called “INCREDIBLE.”
For Littler, nine-darters have become almost routine — which is a sentence that should sound absurd to anyone who understands what it takes to group three darts into a triple-20, then do it again, then finish 141 in three more. The Sporting News noted that Littler “has hit loads of 9-darters before,” and he wasted no time adding to the collection.
The World Matchplay is one of darts’ premier televised majors, held annually at the Empress Ballroom inside the Winter Gardens. Littler, still a teenager, has rapidly become the sport’s biggest draw — a fact that would have sounded like a tall tale a couple of years ago, when he was still largely unknown outside the youth circuit.
Aspinall, a former Matchplay champion himself, found himself on the wrong end of the opening-leg fireworks but responded with his own maximum checkout, turning the match into something that resembled a highlight reel more than a competitive fixture.
The match continued with Rock vs. Bunting on the slate as the tournament progressed through its first round.