Luke Humphries snubbed Luke Littler when naming the player he would most like to win the World Darts Championship apart from himself.
The reigning champion is known to be good friends with Littler in spite of their growing rivalry. They famously did battle in last year’s final, with Humphries tasting victory on that occasion to secure world domination for the first time.
They are both among the favourites to win this year’s title, with Littler having a slight edge over Humphries according to the bookies. While the man from Leeds will be desperate to claim the honours once again, he will be aware that anything can happen in darts.
Quizzed on who he would like to win the World Darts Championship if he is dumped out of the competition, Humphries snubbed Littler by choosing his good friend Ryan Searle.
“If I could choose, I would say Ryan Searle because he’s one of my best friends in darts,” he told Happy Hour.
“For the sport, it would be good if Luke won. It’s going to kick off and make it even bigger. I think apart from me winning it, I’d like to see Ryan win it.”
Humphries went on to insist that he is only focused on retaining his title and crushing the hopes of his rival players.
“I want to destroy everybody’s dreams,” he said. “I want it to be my dream again. Once you’ve experienced being a world champion, you never want to let that go.
“The hard thing about darts is that you only get to experience this maybe a few times in your career. If I were to leave the sport in 20 years with five titles, it would be amazing, but the other 20 times you haven’t been a world champion.
“You have to accept that you won’t be a world champion more times than you are, most likely. So when you’re in this sort of form and the way I’ve been playing, you want to take advantage of it and put yourself in the elite level of back-to-back world champions.
“I’ve got every opportunity to do it, you know, put myself in that elite company of only three players who have ever done it.”
Humphries won his first match of the World Darts Championship, cruising to a routine victory over Thibault Tricole on the opening night. It remains to be seen if Littler will do the same when he goes up against Ryan Meikle on Saturday.
