{"id":1163457,"date":"2026-02-22T22:44:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T03:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/?p=1163457"},"modified":"2026-02-22T22:44:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T03:44:35","slug":"littler-wins-in-poland-despite-van-veen-nine-darter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/littler-wins-in-poland-despite-van-veen-nine-darter\/","title":{"rendered":"Littler wins in Poland despite Van Veen nine-darter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Luke Littler hit seven 180s and averaged just over 108 to beat Gian van Veen in the final [Getty Images]<\/p>\n<p>Luke Littler won the Poland Darts Open title despite a nine-dart finish in the final from Gian van Veen.<\/p>\n<p>World champion<strong><\/strong>Littler was in devastating form as he hit seven 180s on his way to an 8-4 victory and the \u00a335,000 first prize.<\/p>\n<p>Van Veen, who also lost to Littler in the final of the World Championship, hit his first ever televised nine-darter but it was in vain as the Briton averaged just over 108 to overcome the Dutchman.<\/p>\n<p>Victory sees Littler become the inaugural champion at the tournament which is the first European Tour event to be held in Poland.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been a very good weekend for myself,&#8221; said Littler, who won his fifth European Tour title.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I felt really good throughout the tournament. In the first three weeks of the Premier League I&#8217;ve not felt the best, so I definitely needed this one.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wanted to come here and win the title and that&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve done. Most importantly it was about playing well, getting that average up and hitting my doubles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Littler beat Ross Smith, Josh Rock and Chris Dobey on Sunday to make the final, while Van Veen got past Nathan Aspinall, Wessel Nijman and world number two Luke Humphries.<\/p>\n<p>Van Veen took control of the match to go 3-2 up in the fifth leg when two 180s were followed up by a 141 finish in a perfect nine-dart leg.<\/p>\n<p>The moment sparked Littler into life, however, who won the next four legs to take a 6-3 lead.<\/p>\n<p>Van Veen showed some resistance to claw a leg back, but Littler regained his composure to win the next two legs in just 28 darts to seal an 8-4 victory.<\/p>\n<p>The European Tour will continue with the European Darts Trophy on 13 March as Aspinall bids to retain his crown in Gottingen.<\/p>\n<h2>Poland Darts Open results<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Final<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Luke Littler 8-4 Gian van Veen<\/p>\n<p><strong>Semi-finals<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Luke Littler 7-3 Chris Dobey<\/p>\n<p>Gian van Veen 7-5 Luke Humphries<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quarter-Finals<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Luke Littler 6-1 Josh Rock<\/p>\n<p>Chris Dobey 6-2 Michael Smith<\/p>\n<p>Luke Humphries 6-1 Stephen Bunting<\/p>\n<p>Gian van Veen 6-2 Wessel Nijman<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round Three<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Luke Littler 6-2 Ross Smith<\/p>\n<p>Josh Rock 6-3 Cristo Reyes<\/p>\n<p>Chris Dobey 6-5 Luke Woodhouse<\/p>\n<p>Michael Smith 6-4 Jonny Clayton<\/p>\n<p>Luke Humphries 6-1 Boris Krcmar<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Bunting 6-1 Jermaine Wattimena<\/p>\n<p>Gian van Veen 6-5 Nathan Aspinall<\/p>\n<p>Wessel Nijman 6-1 Cameron Menzies<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/darts\/articles\/c743w83d38jo?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bsport%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\">Littler thrashes De Decker at Polish Darts Open<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/darts\/articles\/c3edypxvx31o?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bsport%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\">Premier League Darts 2026 fixtures, results and table<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/littler-wins-poland-despite-van-224435907.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/littler-wins-poland-despite-van-224435907.html<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Luke Littler hit seven 180s and averaged just over 108 to beat Gian van Veen in the final [Getty Images] Luke Littler won the Poland&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1163458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1163457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1163458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}