Luke Littler conquered both Rob Cross and a hostile Alexandra Palace crowd on Monday night and is expecting more boos when he returns to the stage.
The defending champion beat Cross 4-2 in a brilliant match, which saw Littler hold off a fightback and book his spot in the quarter-finals with a 106.58 average.
The Nuke was met with boos over the contest, though, with Ally Pally cheering on Cross in the hope of an upset.
The 18-year-old kept his composure to win the game impressively, but let out his emotions after hitting the winning double, shouting ‘Now what?’ at the crowd.
Asked about the hostile atmosphere on stage, Littler told Sky Sports: ‘I’m not bothered. Really I’m not bothered. Really not bothered. HAHAHA!
‘Can I just say one thing? You guys pay for tickets and you pay for my prize so thank you for my money. Thank you for booing me. Come on!
‘No-one wanted me to win but I proved them wrong yet again.’
Littler does not think he did anything wrong to warrant the boos from the north London crowd, other than be extremely good at darts.
The teenager puts it down to the fans just wanting to see an upset, or at least a close match, and he is probably right.
In just his third World Darts Championship appearance, Littler has become so likely to win that fans have begun to turn on him.
‘Obviously they want the underdog to win or they want the game to go on even longer than it should do,’ Littler told a post-match press conference. ‘But it definitely fuelled me up and I’ve definitely played better then. We’ll just have to see what happens on New Year’s Day.’
On whether the crowd reaction surprised him, he said: ‘Yeah. It is what it is. They want the underdog to win, They want the favourites to go out. I just had to get it out the way and get the job done.’
‘People might not say I’m mature, but try and be in my position’
Despite declaring that he wasn’t bothered by the reaction, Littler did say he was angered during the the match and he feels he did well to control his emotions until the final dart was thrown.
‘Obviously I gave it a little bit on a few checkouts throughout the game but I kept thinking to myself, “just leave everything till that last dart goes in”,’ he said.
‘The performance tonight really doesn’t feel like a 106.5 because there was that much adrenaline going through me, that much emotion, the anger. But I can say I’m glad that I’ve won.
‘Two years ago I think I would have started throwing my darts left-handed. But that’s how much I’ve grown, how much I’ve matured. People might not say I’m mature, but try and be in my position.
‘I think that’s the first time I’ve been at the World Championship and the crowd haven’t wanted me to win. I expect the worst on New Year’s Day, whoever I do play, and whatever happens happens, I’m ready.
‘All us dart players, we’re always going to show emotion and we have every right to do so. When you’re in a game like that, with a hostile crowd, you’ve just got to let it out and that’s what I did at the end.’
When does Luke Littler play next?
Littler’s quarter-final opponent will be decided on Tuesday afternoon when Luke Woodhouse takes on Krzysztof Ratajski for the chance to face the world number one on New Year’s Day.
The only other player to have already booked a place in the last eight is Ryan Searle, who continued his superb form with a 4-0 win over James Hurrell on Monday night.