The World Grand Prix final will take place inside the Mattioli Arena in Leicester on Sunday night where despite a format set up for shocks and surprises the top two in the world will do battle when Luke Humphries takes on Luke Littler.
Humphries is a former winner of this tournament and is competing in a third straight Grand Prix final. This is one of the few majors that Littler has never won and he’ll be looking to put that right over the course of the evening.
Luke Humphries
The world number one Luke Humphries has come through the draw without too much trouble so far. On paper, his toughest test was probably Nathan Aspinall in the first round but actually the man who put up the biggest challenge to him was Danny Noppert, although there is a good chance he just enjoyed himself from 4-1 down. Humphries has only dropped five sets on his way to a third straight World Grand Prix final so the format is still suiting him nicely.
Humphries was struggling to put both facets of the game together in the early rounds. When he hit his doubles well his scoring was patchy and when he scored well the doubles didn’t come as regularly but in the first five sets against Noppert everything was working. He will be frustrated that he didn’t maintain the level and get the job done quicker but we saw that his best darts are there and just the magnitude of the occasion here should ensure his level doesn’t dip too much.
Luke Littler
When he arrived at the Mattioli Arena this week, Luke Littler had never won a match in this tournament and had a dog of a first round draw against Gian van Veen to overcome. He did that in ruthless fashion and then cruised past Mike De Decker in the next round but had to dodge a major bullet against Gerwyn Price in the quarter final. His semi-final win over Jonny Clayton was much more straightforward but it could have been different had he not checked out 140 when staring a 2-2 set score in the face, or had Clayton taken more of his chances.
Littler has played in moments for much of this week, certainly since he took care of van Veen. His scoring has been excellent when he has got into a groove, as you would expect, but his doubling hasn’t been quite as crisp as he would have wanted. You get the feeling he is a little unsure what to do at the start of the leg and it is impacting him at the end of the leg. His ton plus checkouts have saved him but you wonder if he will get by like that here. It all changes if he starts on tops though.
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Head-to-head
These two men have met on 24 previous occasions with Luke Littler now out in front 14-10 in those past battles. 10 of those have come in 2025 where Littler has a 6-4 advantage and in terms of TV matches it is 12-7 to Littler and 6-4 to him this year. This will be the first time that they have met in the double start format but it will be the sixth time that they have played in a final. Luke Humphries holds the edge there having won three to the two he lost. All three wins came in major finals while the world number one has won their only previous set meeting.
Betting
This is the final we all wanted to see and it would be a surprise if we were left disappointed because both look to be playing well. I am very surprised to see Luke Humphries as a 13/8 outsider. I can have him as the underdog here but I think this final is much closer than that because the set format suits Humphries so well. Even before he had established himself in the game and won the world title, he had reached two World Championship quarter finals and since then he has won this title over sets, made another final prior to this one, and won the World Masters.
Humphries is comfortable in the set format but even though Luke Littler won the World Championship at the beginning of the year, it isn’t necessarily a format that suits him. He is a player suited to the match play format where his bursts of incredible starts reel off five or six legs and take the game away from someone rather than sets where it might only net you one set. Littler will be competitive in this final but in a format that is a leveller anyway but maybe better suited to the world number one, I’ll go with Humphries at the prices here.
Tips
Back L.Humphries to beat L.Littler for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Bet365
