Luke Littler recently became the youngest ever world number one after winning the 2025 Grand Slam of Darts and Phil Taylor believes there’s only one way other players can beat him…
A 16-11 win over Luke Humphries in the 2025 Grand Slam of Darts final on Sunday put Luke Littler comfortably at the top of the PDC Order of Merit rankings as he retained his Grand Slam title and became the NEW world number one.
See more – PDC Order of Merit updates following 2025 Grand Slam of Darts
That was his fifth PDC major ranking title of 2025 out of a possible seven as the 18-year-old continues to establish himself as the most dominant player in darts.
A generational talent…🪄 pic.twitter.com/n7npO9nGnh
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) November 17, 2025
Luke Humphries admitted after the match that they are both in a league of their own but even he is struggling to stop Littler so far this year…
Unanimously considered to be the best darts player of all time, Phil Taylor has been in Littler’s position many, many times before.
He held the world number one position for thirteen years in total and this included a run of eight consecutive years from 2006 – 2013.
Having been at the top for so long, he knows what other players could have done to dethrone him and believes there is only ‘one way’ that current players can beat Luke Littler now…
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Phil Taylor on ‘Only Way’ to Beat Luke Littler
Phil Taylor has now called on other players to step up and take on the youngster.
In an exclusive interview with talkSPORT, Taylor explained that Luke Littler does have a weakness but also admits that there is only one way to beat the youngster.
He said:
“The other players now, they’ve got to start changing something. They’ve got to either change their darts or change something to make themselves a better player.
“And I’ve noticed Luke is a slow starter sometimes and that’s when you’ve got to get him.
“I was with Nathan Aspinall and Chris Dobey this morning, I said ‘look if you want to get him, you’ve got to get him early doors and then you’ve got to keep him under pressure’, That’s the only way to beat young Luke.
“I’d say the first five minutes. I mean, he’s 5-0 down the other night and he came back.
“You’ve got to keep him under pressure because I think what people are doing, they’re getting in front and then they’re getting nervous.
“I used to treat him as if it was a school bully, right? I’m gonna start hitting you back and see if you like it.
“So that’s what they’ve got to do. It’s a lot easier to talk about than just doing it, but they’ve got to do it.”
We did see instances of this play out last week. Josh Rock, Danny Noppert and Luke Humphries all led up to the halfway point in the match but then over the longer format, they just couldn’t stop him…
This is also the same thing players used to say when playing against Phil Taylor.
Wayne Mardle often mentions during commentary that the only way to beat Taylor during his prime was to get him during the early rounds as the longer the format, the harder he was to beat.
The difference was that Phil Taylor wasn’t really a slow starter and there have been instances of Littler taking his time to get going.
At 18-years-old though, his game is far from matured so if players do catch him having slow starts, it’s something the Nuke has plenty of time to rectify even if it does show to be a weakness.
You can see Taylor’s full interview provided by talkSPORT Darts below:
Luke Littler will be back in action this weekend at the Players Championship Finals.
He was runner-up in this competition last year so he’ll be looking to keep building momentum and lift another trophy before the 2026 World Championship starts which will have a huge £1 million in prize money going to the winner!
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