Luke Littler is not ruling out breaking Phil Taylor’s monumental record in the World Matchplay after winning the event for the first time on Sunday night.
The 18-yaer-old turned in a stunning performance to beat James Wade 18-13 in a brilliant final in Blackpool.
The world champion finished the match with a blistering average of 107.24, throwing 17 180s over the piece.
Wade enjoyed the dream start to the match, racing into a 5-0 lead, and played beautifully for most of the contest, incredibly averaging 101.54 over 31 frames and still losing.
Littler was in untouchable form, though, and expects to be for a long time to come as he is already having a look at Taylor’s absurd record of 16 World Matchplay titles.
The Power made the Blackpool event his own, so much so that the trophy is named after the legend of the oche, and it was stirring for the Nuke to get his hands on it for the first time.
‘It means everything,’ he said. ‘Obviously he came here on his last Matchplay and picked up the trophy. To win it 16 times, Phil was the player he was, but just to get my name on the trophy means a lot.’
On his chances of reaching 16 titles himself, Littler added: ‘That’s the only thing, its carrying on for that amount of time, but maybe in the next 16 times I might have broken it. I might come back every year and just win it!
‘I want to conquer everything in this sport and I’ve ticked this one off tonight. I want to win one of everything and we’ll see what happens from there.’
Littler has given himself a target of ticking off every major PDC title once and few would doubt that he can achieve that, but what would come next?
‘That’s what everyone’s probably thinking, what do I do after I’ve won one of everything,’ he said.
‘But for myself, just build on it, get multiple of everything. get triple of everything. But yeah, once I win one of everything I won’t pack it in just yet.’
The teenager is not short of targets and before 16 World Matchplays and one of every title, he is eyeing up the world number one spot, which he is yet to claim in his career.
Despite Littler’s incredible success so far in his career, Luke Humphries has held onto the top spot in the rankings, but the Nuke knows he could usurp him by the end of the year.
‘Obviously I’ve looked at the rankings, provisional world number one for the Worlds, if Luke doesn’t defend all that prize money,’ he said. ‘Obviously I don’t want him to, I’d love to be world number one.’
Littler landed a record 64 180s in his World Matchplay campaign, beating the previous high watermark of 56 set by Adrian Lewis in 2013.
It was a stunning string of performances from the world number two, including a nine-darter against Josh Rock in the semi-finals.
Wade also enjoyed a fabulous tournament, returning to the Blackpool final for the first time since 2015, remarkably his seventh Matchplay showpiece.
His run was ended in the final by Littler, just as it was at the UK Open this season, but his performance was massively better on Sunday than it was in Minehead, when he was brushed aside 11-2.