The third day of action at the World Series of Darts Finals sees the start, and the end, of the second round, with players fighting it out for a spot at finals day on Sunday. There are many stand out ties, James Wade taking on Wessel Nijman, Luke Humphries against Dirk van Duijvenbode, but there is one that stands out more than most.
The final game of the round sees the world number 1 Luke Littler take on his close friend Nathan Aspinall for just a second time in 2026. The pair previously met a lot, nine times in 2024 and ten times in 2025, but with the “Asp” being emitted from the Premier League in 2026, their meetings have become a lot sparser.
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Their most recent meeting game at the World Matchplay in July, which was quite simply one of the best matches of the year. By far the closest Littler was pushed in his record-breaking Blackpool campaign, only winning 11-8 despite averaging an incredible 113.68, having hit a 9-darter on the way!
This isn’t the only high calibre meeting these two have shared, having met in the final of the 2025 Players Championship Finals, Littler once again taking it 11-8 with a big average of 103.33. There is however a similar trend in their battles however: Aspinall always fights to make it close, but he very rarely gets the job done.
Since their first meeting in the 2024 Bahrain Masters, where Littler hit his first televised 9-darter in the PDC, there have been 20 meetings in total between the two, with the world number one winning 17 of them. The only thee wins from Aspinall come in non-ranking events, one in the league phase of the Premier League, and two on the World Series last June, never winning a game on a major stage.
The pair have gone a similar way about the 2026 season, playing minimal ProTour events but still putting in good performances when they do turn up, having both picked up European Tour titles this year despite their low appearance numbers.
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Aspinall has a 12-month average of 95.99, hitting 38.01% of his darts at double. His game however has a massive boost when he enters the big stage events, whether that’s European Tours or majors. His numbers there rise to 99.66 for the season, third to only the two Luke’s among all 128 Tour Card holders!
Luke Littler obviously has the most mouth-watering numbers, averaging 101.24 for the last 12 months, hitting over 44% of his darts at double. His numbers unsurprisingly also rise on the big stage, hitting an incredible 102.71 for 2026 so far!
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The winner of the encounter will take on either Jonny Clayton or Motomu Sakai in the Sunday afternoon session, with a spot in the final four on offer.
Images: PDC
