VAN GERWEN ENDS LITTLER GLORY RUN
27/01/2024 By Phil Lanning
MIGHTY Michael van Gerwen branded Luke Littler “immense” after ending his seven-match World Series unbeaten run.
The Dutch ace beat the Warrington wonderkid 8-6 in the Toto Dutch Masters final on Saturday night.
The pair slugged it out in a classic final and finally MVG found a way to stop the 17-year-old, just a week after Littler had beaten him in Bahrain.
Van Gerwen, 34, admitted: “This is what people like to watch. He put me under so much pressure. Everyone knows he’s the guy in form.
“Luke is going to have a bright future, we all know that. Still you want to stop him. You have to do the right things against him.
“His scoring power is so immense. You have to keep battling, you have to keep fighting. I’m glad I was able to.
“He doesn’t care about anything, he just does his own thing and that’s a good thing.
“I had some really tough games lately. I under-performed a lot of times. You have to make sure you keep your fighting spirit going and never give up.
“People probably don’t even know 5% of the great times that Toon Greebe and I had. When we were playing in the youth together. We had a great time.
“To win this trophy and against Luke Littler in front of this home crowd, it feels amazing. You have to move on in life and that’s the horrible thing. To see a crowd like this always means a lot.”
Littler had beaten Luke Humphries and Gerwyn Price in the quarters and semis and never gave an inch in a high quality final.
He added: “It went leg-by-leg, hold-by-hold. Every hold was unbelievable.
“I put him under pressure, I tried but he just wouldn’t miss. The crowd have been amazing and they wanted Michael to win and I get that.
“How many 140s did he hit? Respect to Michael. He finally got me at the end.
“Hopefully I haven’t burnt myself out for the Premier League next week. I just take this as match practice and I can’t wait to go to Cardiff on Tuesday.”
Images by Taylor Lanning.
