Bournemouth-born world darts champion Scott Mitchell said he “didn’t realise” Luke Littler “was going to be quite this special” after the teenager added a fifth major title to his collection at the World Grand Prix last weekend.
Littler beat Luke Humphries in Sunday’s World Grand Prix final by 6 sets to 1, making him the youngest ever player to win the championship.
Reacting to the final, Bournemouth’s Mitchell said: “We just keep asking ourselves ‘what more has Luke Littler got to give?’
“He’s done so much in a short time and he is a phenomenon.”
The 18-year-old survived match darts earlier in the tournament, with Mitchell saying: “[Littler] saved himself with two big shots against Gerwyn Price in the quarters and goes on in mesmerising form and setting record after record with averages.”
Littler also overcame a tournament-record losing average from Gian van Veen of 106.47 in the opening round.
The victory means that Littler has won five of the eight major PDC titles and looks set to replace Luke Humphries as world number one in the coming weeks, with the next major (the European Championship) starting on the 23rd of October.
Mitchell won the WDF World Darts Championship in 2015 and competed alongside Littler at last year’s South Coast Showdown II at the Bournemouth International Centre.
Mitchell said: “He’s won a world championship. Where’s the motivation? How does he keep going? Well, he goes off and wins the World Grand Prix, and in such fashion.”
“Some of us have known him for an awful long time – I’ve known him since 2018 – and we knew he was gonna be something special, but we didn’t realise he was going to be quite this special.”
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