The 16-year-old beat Cross 6-2 in the semi-finalLittler to face Scott Williams or Luke Humphries on Wednesday
Now we know for sure. And perhaps on some level we always suspected it, from the moment a 16-year-old kid arrived at these championships on a wave of froth and hype and good tidings and started doing whatever he wanted. Everyone who has ever seen Luke Littler throw a dart, from Phil Taylor to his hapless beaten opponents at junior level, will have told you that this was the next giant of the sport. But some time in the future. Not right now. Surely not now.
But at half past nine on the second evening of 2024, the future spectacularly and violently morphed into the present. On Wednesday evening, Littler will play Luke Humphries or Scott Williams in the final of the Professional Darts Corporation world championship, and it feels inevitable, and it feels like something from an entirely different reality. Rob Cross, the former world champion, was his strongest opponent by far, the first top-10 player he had faced all tournament, the first man to really push Littler to his outer limits. And in the end he was destroyed like all the others, the score 6-2 in sets, Cross leaving the arena with nothing but a decent cheque and a funny story to tell the grandchildren.
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