Luke Littler remains on course to win the one major title he's never won as he beat Nathan Aspinall 10-5 in the second round of the European Championship Darts on Saturday evening. Littler produced the second-best average in the competition's history - his 114.47 has only ever been bettered by Phil Taylor's 118.14 - as he secured an impressive victory in Dortmund. Aspinall produced ten 180s in the match - three more than his opponent - but it wasn't enough to survive the onslaught from the world No 1, who won the first four legs of the match in 12 darts or fewer.
Aspinall briefly rallied to reduce the score to 5-4, but Littler controlled the second half of the game and, despite one brief interruption to deal with a vocal fan in the crowd, he ultimately closed out the match on D10. "I felt really good from the off," Littler told ITV. "I knew the start was good.
I was gutted at giving him a leg and going into the first break at 4-1 when I wanted 5-0. "Nathan is always there and is always going to come back at you. I couldn't afford to drop off.
I felt confident and had to get the job done." Littler arrived at this tournament following shock defeats at the World Series of Darts and the World Grand Prix which ended his dreams of a perfect season in the majors. However, he remains on track to win the European Championship for the first time after exiting in the last 16 of his debut campaign last year. There was only one issue in there, but other than that the crowd have been really good," he added.
"I've had a long time off and past results haven't gone my way. I've seen on social media some memes that 'Luke's finished' and this and that. "I've had long enough to look at them, get on the practice board and forget about it all.
Hopefully if I do lift the trophy I can say I've not gone anywhere. "I've definitely not gone anywhere here with that performance." Got the Sky Sports app? Krzysztof Ratajski in the quarter-finals after the Pole fought from behind to beat Kevin Doets 10-8.
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