Luke Humphries has lost his world No. 1 spot to Luke Littler with the darts star making his feelings clear on the ranking shift
Luke Humphries has congratulated his rival Luke Littler for overtaking him to clinch the number one spot in the world darts rankings. However, the popular star admits it was frustrating to feel like “the world was waiting for Luke to overtake me.”
Littler recently overtook Cool Hand Luke to secure the world No. 1 spot following his World Championship win. As well as this major title, the Nuke also secured the UK Open, the World Matchplay and the Grand Slam of Darts.
Littler became the youngest player ever to reach number one in the world rankings and rival Humphries was on hand to give his opinion. Speaking to talkSPORT, the 30-year-old said: “It just felt like the world was waiting for Luke to overtake me.
“There were no things about how I could stay at world No1. It was all about how Luke could get to world No. 1. There were no graphs out there from the media saying ‘this is what Luke needs to do to stay at world No1.
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“I felt like, ‘Why aren’t I getting that chance to be like this is what I need to do to stay?’ So, I showed a lot of bottle, to be honest. I made three finals, I defended as best as I could, but obviously when you are against Luke he is a tough player to beat.”
Despite this frustration, Cool Hand Luke admits the ranking change was fair. He added: “If we are going on fairness over the last two years, I think he has definitely been the No. 1 player.”
Humphries is now setting his sights on a first-round clash with Ted Evetts in the World Darts Championship, eager to snatch the title back from Littler.
He said: “I feel like my game is in such a good place. I feel more confident and I feel like I am going to start winning things. I’ve enjoyed the last couple of years and everything that has come with it. I’m just ready to push my career on and win more titles.”
He added: “I’m fully focused, and whatever happens in this Worlds, going into next year I am going to work on this new throw that I have adapted, and that seems to be working really well.
“I just want to try and smash it and win as much as I can to try and put Luke under pressure for that world No. 1 spot.”
