Luke Littler breaks duck as he claims first Premier League night win in Belfast

Littler never looked back after edging out Luke Humphries in a last-leg decider of the opening quarter-final at the SSE Arena, which ended the world champion’s three-night winning Premier League run.

The 17-year-old – who has won titles at the Bahrain Masters, PDC Players Championship and Belgian Open in a breakout year – followed up with an impressive 6-3 win over Michael Van Gerwen, who had beaten him on night two in the Berlin final.

‘The Nuke’ landed a 136 checkout in first leg of the final, then just missed finishing off 170 in second before Aspinall broke throw as he built a 3-1 lead.

Littler, though, fought back to level with a showpiece bullseye-25-bullseye finish – which got a high-five from close-friend Aspinall – and then pushed on to within one leg of victory at 5-3.

Aspinall dug deep to break back in the next, but Littler eventually got the job done on double 10.

Overall victory on night nine moves Littler up to second in the table, four points behind Humphries, while Aspinall now sits in fourth, the last of the play-off places.

“I am just happy to win my first one,” Littler said on Sky Sports.

“People may have seen I have changed my throw to take that little bit of extra time then releasing the next two. I have put more practice in and it has paid off.

“I can’t wait for next week (in Manchester). I know I have got Michael (Van Gerwen) in the first round, but Nathan will obviously enjoy it also in his home town.”

Aspinall had reached his fourth final of this year’s Premier League campaign with a 6-2 win over Peter Wright, in which he produced 14 scores over 100.

Earlier in the other quarter-finals, Premier League title holder Van Gerwen came from 4-2 down against former world champion Michael Smith to win the last four legs, securing victory on a 150 checkout.

Aspinall had seen off Gerwyn Price, last year’s Belfast winner, in a last-leg decider to leave the Welshman further adrift of the play-offs, while Wright beat 2018 world champion Rob Cross 6-3.