Humphries hits nine-darter in Grand Slam win

3 hours ago 1

World number one Luke Humphries hit a nine-dart finish to beat Michael Smith 5-3 at the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton.

Humphries struggled on the doubles in the first few legs but then hit a 139 checkout to kick into form.

With perfect timing, he then found a perfect leg at 4-3 up to clinch victory in style with his second televised nine-darter, making it two wins from two matches in the group stage.

"It's the weirdest game of darts I've been involved in," said the Englishman, who needs three legs from his final group game against Nathan Aspinall to reach round two.

"I didn't feel good and couldn't hit a treble. It all felt like hard work and I thought the game was gone.

"To then go on and hit a nine-darter, that's why darts is one of the best sports in the world.

"It was quite an incredible game to be part of, and I'm still flabbergasted from what just happened."

Reigning champion Luke Littler was in ruthless form as he continued his campaign with a 5-3 win over Connor Scutt.

Littler averaged 105 and hit three 180s as he swept past Scutt to also make it two wins from two and earn qualification to the knockout stage.

Three-time world champion Michael van Gerwen was out of sorts and beaten 5-4 by Germany's Niko Springer, with the Dutchman missing 15 darts at double.

Three-time Grand Slam winner Gerwyn Price whitewashed James Wade, Stephen Bunting lost a deciding leg to Martin Schindler, and Gary Anderson was a 5-4 winner against Beau Greaves.

Greaves hit the highest televised average (102.46) by a female player, beating the 101.55 set by Fallon Sherrock at the same event four years ago.

She had taken Van Gerwen to a deciding leg on Saturday and Anderson said she will be a big success when taking her place on the professional tour.

"She's going to cause so much trouble next year in the ProTour," said Anderson. "I watched Beau the night before - she was hitting 140 after 140.

"After the next five years I don't think you will have one person dominating darts because from these youngsters there are going to be so many good darts players."

Anderson faces Van Gerwen on Tuesday, with the winner progressing from the group stage.

Nathan Aspinall 5-2 Alex Spellman

Luke Humphries 5-3 Michael Smith

Martin Lukeman 4-5 Jurjen van der Velde

Chris Dobey 5-1 Damon Heta

Stephen Bunting 4-5 Martin Schindler

Luke Woodhouse 5-2 Alexis Toylo

James Wade 0-5 Gerwyn Price

Ricky Evans 5-4 Stefan Bellmont

Daryl Gurney 3-5 Karel Sedlacek

Luke Littler 5-3 Connor Scutt

Josh Rock 5-0 Lisa Ashton