Luke Littler's hopes of a historic clean sweep are over after a painful 10-4 quarter-final defeat to Jonny Clayton at the World Series of Darts Finals in Amsterdam on Sunday afternoon. The reigning world champion was eliminated at the AFAS Live, where his faltering finishing and a strained relationship with sections of the crowd once again took centre stage.
Littler started brightly, leading 2-1 with both players averaging well above 105. Clayton levelled at 2-2 and the match stayed balanced at 3-3, with both holding throw and averages hovering around a ton. But the pattern flipped completely from there. Clayton landed the first break and consolidated for 5-3. Littler pulled one back with a classy 129 checkout, but the gap on the doubles became decisive. Mid-match, Clayton was scoring 54 percent on the outer ring, while Littler converted only 26.67 percent of his chances.
Clayton punished every slip, breaking again for 7-4 and stretching clear to 8-4. At that score, Littler had two fine openings to respond but couldn't find double 1. His frustration visibly spiked as he vented at the board and turned to the crowd with sarcastic applause. Clayton stayed composed, making it 9-4 and sealing it on tops for a 10-4 victory. Across the match, Littler hit just four of his twenty darts at a double.
The defeat also ended Littler's bid for a rare feat, as he can no longer sweep all the majors this calendar year. His irritation did not come out of nowhere. Throughout the weekend he repeatedly clashed with a section of the crowd. On Friday, during his match against Danny Noppert, he was met with boos and responded by cupping his ears, goading the fans. Noppert later apologised after exuberantly celebrating a 180 as he walked close by Littler. A day later, issues flared again in Littler's match with Nathan Aspinall. There was whistling while the world champion was on throw, prompting the referee to halt play and address the arena. Littler did survive that night, edging Aspinall 10-9.
Afterwards, he made clear his patience with the Dutch crowd was wearing thin, even threatening to skip future European Tour events in the Netherlands. "But yeah, if the Dutch stay like this, then I'm not going to do any Euro Tours over there. There's just no point in me travelling, wasting my time whilst I'm getting booed," he said to Online Darts.
