EXCLUSIVE
Luke Littler cheekily reminds Gerwyn Price of defeats but is told ‘I will beat you’
Luke Littler could not help but give a cheeky dig to Gerwyn Price over their recent scores but the Welshman came out fighting.
Littler, who celebrated his 17th birthday last week, has taken the darts world by storm after reaching the PDC World Championship final earlier this month.
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While he lost, the youngster was named in the eight-man list to compete in the Premier League this year, including former world champions Price, Michael van Gerwen and Michael Smith.
And 'The Nuke' will not fear any of them after winning the Bahrain Masters and finishing runners-up at the Dutch Masters in his first two World Series events, beating Price, Van Gerwen and Luke Humphries this month already.
With the Premier League set to kick off in Cardiff this year, all eyes are on Price, who hails from the city and is usually painted as the pantomime villain across stadiums in England.
So when Littler meets Price on stage at the Principality Stadium, the teenager might face boos for the first time in his career, having had the crowd on his side throughout his short professional career.
READ MORE ON LUKE LITTLER
The two have already met twice - at the Bahrain Masters and Dutch Masters earlier this year - and Littler swatted aside the 2021 world champion with astonishing ease - 7-3 in Bahrain and 7-4 in Den Bosch.
And speaking to talkSPORT, both the 'Iceman' and the 'Nuke' sat down with Jim White, Dean Saunders and Danny Murphy and were in jovial moods.
When asked by White what he thought of Littler, Price joked: ";Rubbish!"
As he and Littler laughed, the teenager said: "Clearly because I've beaten him the past two times!"
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Price continued: "Listen, I think he is brilliant, you can see with the other players that they don't like him about!
"But I love him, I think he's great for darts. I mean how many people are watching now, so many are now interested in the sport and fair play to him.
Luke Littler stuns Danny Murphy with darts technique but Gerwyn Price can't help but make cheeky dig at teenage sensation
"But yeah, I will beat him soon!"
Littler, who has beaten Price twice already, gave him a cheeky reminder of their score by quipping: "2-0!"
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While Littler has boosted the popularity for darts to another level, for many pros they already knew how good he was - but did not expect him to hit the ground running at his first PDC event.
"Everybody knew about Luke obviously from the Modus Series, winning that, doing well in the youth and development tour," Price added.
"So we all sort of knew about him but didn't know how well he was going to do when he came into the PDC and yeah, he has grabbed it with both hands.
"To get to a World Championship final on your first go… I thought he was going to win. I really did. I think that double two goes in and he goes 5-2 sets up then it is a different story.
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"It is brilliant for darts and I wish him all the well - but I hope he plays rubbish against me next time!"
The Premier League starts on Thursday night with Peter Wright facing Rob Cross before Price takes on Nathan Aspinall.
Van Gerwen and Smith then face off in a repeat of the 2023 World Championship final as Littler then looks to exact revenge on Humphries, who beat him in the Worlds final earlier this month.
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