Luke Littler has broken his Premier League duck with an impressive comeback win over Nathan Aspinall in the Belfast final.
Littler has made it his aim for 2024 to make it through to the Premier League play-offs at the end of May.
Players need to win Premier League nights to give them the best chance of doing so and Littler missed his previous chance in Berlin at the start of February.
He's had a steady run on his debut Premier League campaign, but headed into the ninth evening in Belfast with hopes of ending his wait for victory.
Luke Littler won his first Premier League night
PA
It wasn't an easy start as he went up against the in-form world champion Luke Humphries, who was gunning for history in trying to win four consecutive Premier League nights.
But Littler proved his nerve to pull off an impressive 6-5 victory, showing just how much it meant to him as he celebrated wildly on stage.
Another difficult test awaited in the semi-final against Michael van Gerwen, who also went on a run of three consecutive Premier League night wins before Humphries.
But Littler demolished the Dutchman 6-3 to make it through to his second final of the Premier League season against his stablemate Aspinall.
It looked to be going the way of Aspinall after he opened up a 3-1 lead with some punishing darts.
However, the 17-year-old kept his cool despite the setback and took his chance in the fifth leg to pull back to within one.
The momentum then changed in the sixth as Littler showed his class by hitting the bull twice after leaving 125 to level up the final.
The Belfast crowd lapped it up and Aspinall even showed respect to his opponent by shaking his hand.
Luke Littler ended Luke Humphries' winning run
PA
That seemingly gave Littler the confidence going into the final few legs and he first failed to take the match dart at double-10.
Aspinall had a chance to level the match at 5-5 with 113, but he missed the double-18.
That gave Littler a few match darts before he landed double-five to secure a memorable victory.
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Luke Littler and Nathan Aspinall shared a nice moment on stage after the final
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Speaking after his win, Littler explained a change he had made to this throw that he felt helped him get over the line for the first time in the Premier League.
He said: “I’m happy to win, it’s my first one.
“But as people may have seen, I’ve changed my throw to just take that little bit of extra time and then release the next two.
“I’ve put more practice in, and it’s paid off.”
