The warm, ashen glow of a world championship final is a perfect time to reflect and celebrate, but a terrible time to make predictions. It’s a long old season, most of the big prizes are loaded towards the end and a lot can happen in those early months, some relevant, some irrelevant.
By the way, recency bias is still strong in this one. What happens in the Palace mostly stays in the Palace. This time last year a lot of people were talking about how Michael Smith had finally cracked the code and could continue to dominate the sport for years to come after winning his first world title. Often this new era was depicted as a duopoly, with defeated finalist Michael van Gerwen set to return hungrier than ever. This time last year, the rise of Germany’s first world semi-finalist, Gabriel Clemens, felt inexorable. This time last year there were a lot of rumors that 2023 would be Josh Rock’s year.
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In the end, none of this happened. Smith won a Euro Tour event and had a few good nights in the Premier League, but basically looked like a weakened shadow of the player who took big darts to a whole new level during that memorable final. Van Gerwen won the Premier League and World Series of Darts Finals, was declared “back” on nearly half a dozen separate occasions, but in the interim he hardly ever looked this fallible or vulnerable. Clemens was a solid top 20 player, and instead Ricardo Pietreczko and Martin Schindler emerged as the force that brought them together in the sport’s biggest emerging market. Rock, despite the genuine class he occasionally exudes, still stubbornly denies it.
All of this raises an important thought, perhaps even a veiled warning, for the triumphant Luke Humphries as he enters the most vivid and confusing year of his life. It’s a well-worn cliche for first-time world champions to describe winning their first title as “having done the hard part.” But if recent history is any guide, it probably isn’t. Humphries may feel like he’s climbed Everest by beating darts maniac Luke Littler on Wednesday night. But what awaits him now is a completely different set of challenges.
Whether large-scale World Series events, the Premier League, countless promotional and ambassadorial appearances, photo shoots and video content are the essentials of living in your darts shirt for a year, it’s not just additional demands on your time. It’s not just the veneer of prestige bestowed that gives your opponents extra motivation against you. To some extent this is also the expectation you place on yourself; The responsibility to play “like a world champion” and not like a man who is a world champion.
All of this may help explain why none of the eight champions before Humphries took the trophy. It’s been four years since the reigning champion managed to get through to the quarter-finals. The great Van Gerwen never won twice in a row. Smith struggled badly with that load last year and could be a rejuvenated player with the goal off his back. The ongoing two-year ranking system allows players to chow down on past glories long after the form that created them has evaporated into memory. So how will Humphries escape the champion’s curse? Maybe by doing the opposite: erasing the past and starting from scratch again.
Meanwhile, the opponent he defeated is perhaps the most exciting unknown to come out of this or any world championship. Littler may not know much about life, but he already knows almost everything there is to know about darts. He adds this exercise to his blood circulation before he starts walking. He knows his history and its pitfalls. He knows this is a game that should be kept simple. And there was remarkable maturity when he acknowledged it might be another decade before he reaches another final. Ironically, Littler’s awareness of his own impermanence may be his best defense against this.
Of course, the Premier League is a calculated risk; It gives new competitors a chance to discover their weaknesses, eliminating opportunities to accumulate the Pro Tour points they will need to move up from their current 31st-place ranking and qualify for major tournaments. in the second half of the year. But let’s be real: He’s good enough to succeed almost no matter which path he chooses. The really interesting question is how he deals with that first collapse, that inevitable first blow in a sport where the best players are constantly playing against each other to varying degrees of scrutiny.
Beyond the two Lukes, the most intriguing stories lurk on the fringes of the elite. Is Peter Wright in temporary quagmire or the final slide? Can Jonny Clayton ever get back to his best? What will it take to get Dimitri van den Bergh back on track? Could Ross Smith, Ryan Searle or Stephen Bunting make a big splash? Will this finally be Dave Chisnall’s year?
Nobody knows, of course. It is a sport that stubbornly defies analysis or deconstruction, it is a sport of pure energies, and in a way that is the basis of its appeal. Wednesday’s final attracted a television audience of almost five million in England and almost three million in Germany and already looks like a new turning point for a sport that will continue to grow, will continue to progress, will continue to reach into areas of culture. Luke would never give a second dart. Yes, this is a bad time to make predictions. But at least it feels safe.