Luke Littler has won the first six PDC Premier events of 2026 and reached the final on both of his previous visits to the World Series of Darts Finals. Beating the world number one in Amsterdam will require something exceptional, but Jonny Clayton has already managed it three times this year.
The two former champions have landed in the same section of the draw and could meet in Sunday afternoon’s quarter-finals. Littler begins against Danny Noppert before a possible meeting with Nathan Aspinall or Raymond Smith, while Clayton must negotiate Maik Kuivenhoven and then Callan Rydz or Motomu Sakai.
Littler lifted the title on his tournament debut in 2024 and returned to the final last year, only for Michael van Gerwen to win 11-7 in front of his home crowd. Clayton’s own Amsterdam triumph came during his remarkable 2021 campaign, when the World Series Finals became one of four televised titles won by the Welshman.
Speaking on Episode 10 of the DartsNews Podcast, Nicolas Gayer and Samuel Gill both selected Littler as their expected champion. Yet when the discussion turned to who could actually stop him, Clayton emerged as the clearest threat, with Kieran Wood predicting that the Welshman could end Littler’s run before the final.
“I will never pick another winner again other than Luke Littler, because that was my last lesson that I had to learn, apparently,” Gayer admitted, recalling his unsuccessful attempt to oppose the world number one at the World Matchplay. “So to get that out of the way, firstly, I will obviously take Luke Littler as my title winner. But we can also give our best non-Littler performance, which I think is a great category for darts in 2026.”
Gill also expects Littler to leave Amsterdam with the trophy, although his confidence came with one clear qualification. “I think that if anyone is to beat Luke Littler, it’ll be Jonny Clayton,” he said. “In the bottom half, for me, he is one of those players who can pull out a performance out of his backside and perform when it matters most.”
Clayton defeated Littler on three of the first four occasions they met during the 2026 Premier League. He routed the world champion 6-1 in Glasgow, followed it with a 6-4 victory in Belfast and prevailed by the same score in the Rotterdam final.
Littler recovered to finish their Premier League series with a 4-3 advantage, winning 6-4 in Cardiff, 6-1 in Liverpool, 6-5 in Leeds and 6-0 in Birmingham. Clayton still stands alongside Luke Humphries, Gerwyn Price and Gian van Veen among the small group to have repeatedly disrupted Littler’s dominance on television.
The former Premier League, World Grand Prix, Masters and World Series Finals champion also won the New Zealand Darts Masters last month, defeating Price 8-4 in the final to collect his second individual World Series title.
Wood went a step further and predicted that Clayton would win their prospective quarter-final. “I’ve predicted Jonny Clayton to beat Luke Littler, and Luke Littler not to even reach the final,” he said.
Clayton’s draw, history in Amsterdam and three victories over Littler this year have placed the 2021 champion directly across the world number one’s route towards another title.
Littler arrives fresher than several of his leading rivals after withdrawing from last weekend’s Flanders Darts Trophy. James Wade and Ross Smith contested six matches apiece during their runs to the final in Antwerp, while Van Gerwen suffered another early exit after losing his opening match to Damon Heta.
Gill questioned how much appetite some players will have for an unranked tournament during a period containing consecutive European Tour events and approaching ranking majors. “James Wade, maybe, but I think Littler strikes a fine balance as well,” he said of the players capable of challenging. “He doesn’t play too much, and quite a lot of these players will have played for multiple weeks.”
“It’s always a debate that we’ve had recently about the European Tour and players snubbing it, but it will be players like Luke Littler and Luke Humphries who manage to rise to the fore. Then it’ll be players like Michael van Gerwen, who continue to play, where it’s going to be a bit of a struggle perhaps,” he continued. “But Van Gerwen showed last year, when he won it while in no form at all, that he can do it.”
The World Grand Prix follows in Leicester from September 28, with the European Championship, Grand Slam and Players Championship Finals still to come before attention turns towards Alexandra Palace.
“For me, it’s motivation levels,” Gill continued. “Do you really want to get up for an unranked tournament, especially when you’ve got the World Grand Prix on the horizon, the European Championship after that and the Players Championship Finals to try to qualify for? How far will this rank in people’s minds? I don’t know if it needs a revamp in the future potentially, and that’s another talking point. Luke Littler will win it if he’s motivated, and if he won’t, it will be open season.”
Littler defeated Michael Smith to win the 2024 title and returned to the final last September despite falling short against Van Gerwen. Another triumph would continue his unbeaten run through the PDC’s Premier events in 2026.
Gayer selected Ross Smith to produce the best performance outside Littler after the former European champion reached his fourth European Tour final of the season in Antwerp. Smith has won twice on the European Tour in 2026 and sits well clear at the top of its Order of Merit, putting him on course to enter October’s European Championship as the number one seed. He begins his Amsterdam campaign against Kevin Doets and could find Van Gerwen waiting in the quarter-finals.
“I picked Ross Smith because he will be in the upper bracket,” said Gayer. “He could face Littler in the final potentially, and I have him as the best performer from that upper bracket and the best non-Littler performance.”
Wood looked instead towards Van Veen, who reached the Flanders Darts Trophy semi-finals and has rediscovered some of the form that carried him to January’s World Championship final.
“I’ve gone for Gian van Veen purely because of the way he played on the weekend,” Wood explained. “He seems to have really come back into that kind of form that he was in at the back end of last year and the start of this year, before the kidney stones.”
“I just think he’s coming into his best form at the right time. If you look at his draw, he’s got Chris Dobey in the first round, who has not had the greatest season. If he wins that, it’s Karel Sedlacek or Ben Robb, and then it’s looking at likely Luke Humphries in the quarter-final,” he concluded. “He’s got a good record on TV against Humphries, and I think it could open up for him.”
Van Gerwen, Stephen Bunting and Price face immediate dangers of their own against Daryl Gurney, Josh Rock and Brody Klinge respectively. Littler’s opening assignment against Noppert is hardly generous either, even if everything seen across 2026 suggests that the draw must be judged by who can stop him rather than who he may need to beat.
Clayton has already supplied three answers to that question this year. Two victories apiece would bring the pair together again on Sunday, with Amsterdam’s former champions fighting for a place in the semi-finals and Littler’s perfect Premier-event record placed directly on the line.
