Bahrain Masters: Luke Little and Luke Humphries win first-round matches but Rob Cross is knocked out

Newly crowned world champion Luke Littler started his Bahrain Masters title defence with a 6-3 victory against Lourence Ilagan in Sakhir.

Littler, who lifted his maiden PDC senior trophy at the tournament 12 months ago, was 4-1 up when Filipino Ilagan won back-to-back legs to put slight pressure on the 17-year-old.

However, a 142 checkout in the eighth leg put Littler back in control and in the end he cruised to victory with a 94.36 average.

There was a shock in the opening match when world number three Rob Cross was beaten 6-3 by Paolo Nebrida, ranked 91 places lower.

Nebrida, 30, claimed victory with double top to become the first player from the Philippines to win a match on the World Series.

World number one Luke Humphries averaged 103.66 and hit six out of six doubles to thrash home player Abdulla Saeed 6-0.

Thursday’s first round pits eight players from the PDC circuit against eight players from Asia in a first-to-six-legs match.

The quarter-finals, semi-finals and final are all scheduled to take place on Friday.

Welshman Gerwyn Price booked his place in the last eight with a 6-3 win over 23-year-old Lok Yin Lee of Hong Kong.

Debutants Stephen Bunting and Chris Dobey are also through, beating India’s number one Nitin Kumar (6-2) and Bahrain’s Basem Mahmood (6-0) respectively.

Scotland’s Peter Wright defeated Filipino Alexis Toylo 6-3, while Englishman Nathan Aspinall won 6-2 against China’s Xiaochen Zong.