Luke Littler: who is the teenager on the cusp of making darts history?

Luke Littler will cement his place in history tonight if he becomes the youngest-ever winner of the PDC World Darts Championships after a breathtaking 12-month ascent that has made him a household name.

The 17-year-old, nicknamed "The Nuke", walloped Stephen Bunting 6-1 in a merciless display to set up a mouth-watering final against Michael van Gerwen. "This shouldn't be happening," said the i news site as Littler reached his second successive PDC final, but "this is a new world, his world".

How did Luke Littler get started?

Littler grew up in the Merseyside town of St Helens, and joined the local darts academy at the age of nine. "By the time he was 10 we knew he was too good for his age," Karl Holden, co-founder of the academy, told BBC Radio 5 Live.

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The St Helens Darts Academy has "helped hone the talents" of several top title contenders, said the Daily Mail, including Bunting and Michael "Bully Boy" Smith, who won the PDC title in 2023.

"He couldn't play in the PDC or the big time until he was 16, so we just let him enjoy himself and he's just worked his way through the ranks," Holden said. "He went from under-10s to under-14 leagues and, before he was 11, he was playing in the under-21s, just simply because he was too good for anybody else."

Littler had played only four senior matches at PDC premier events before his World Championship debut in the 2024 event. He qualified for the UK Open on his 16th birthday in January 2023.

What has Littler won already?

Last January, he became the youngest person to reach the PDC World Championship final, overtaking Kirk Shepherd, who was 21 years and 88 days old in 2008.

Although Littler lost out to Luke Humphries in the final, he went on to enjoy a whirlwind year, winning a series of major titles, including his first PDC senior title in his debut event at the Bahrain Darts Masters, hitting a nine-darter in the quarter-final against Nathan Aspinall.

He "went on to make waves" on the European Tour in 2024, winning both the Belgian Open and Austrian Open, said Sky Sports, and he also took the Premier League final. In total, he won 10 titles last year.

He has pocketed £1.3 million in prize money, as well as lucrative sponsorship deals with National Rail, Xbox, Boohoo Man and KP Nuts.

The reaction

"Deep down, we all knew this was going to happen at some point," said The Guardian. It feels inevitable that the famous Sid Waddell Trophy will be "hoisted aloft in his arms". Although that moment is "potentially hours away", the thought "still seems somehow unreal, illusory" and "transgressive", thanks to a player who is "rewriting the traditions and truisms" of darts.

Regardless of the outcome of tonight's final against Dutchman Van Gerwen, Littler's extraordinary rise is already the stuff of darting legend. Twelve months ago, "he was an unknown", said BBC Sport, but this time, "the pressure is inescapable", with the upsets "his to suffer, rather than to inflict".

Littler is "already, by some distance", the best-known darts player in the world. "Will he now be the best?"