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Alexandra Palace now falls silent as the darting world pauses to usher in 2026. On New Year’s Day, the lights blaze back on and the quarter-finals await

Dead-eyed. Unflinching. Channelling the spirit of his legendary Nottingham ancestor, Robin of Sherwood, demonstrating absurd accuracy.

So as the biggest tournament in darting history loomed into view, few were pencilling in the Glastonbury thrower as a dark horse. Fewer still were daring to whisper his name beyond Christmas. And yet here he stands, now staring down a colossal last-16 meeting with Josh Rock, with a World Championship quarter-final and a glistening £100,000 dangling tantalisingly within reach...

Ratajski has carried the Polish flag into arenas where it had rarely, if ever, been seen – and planted it there with authority

This was Littler in absolute top gear. Full Nuke. No limiter. An imperious 106.58 average. Clinical on the doubles. Seventeen maximums hurled with the casual menace of a player operating several planes above normality...

Hawkeye Kevin Doets seized the afternoon headlines beneath the Alexandra Palace lights, edging out two-time PDC major winner Nathan Aspinall in yet another seven-set...

Luke Humphries, ...was forced to summon his champion’s resolve to repel a thunderous late uprising from Gabriel Clemens, and in doing so, secure his passage into the last 16.

Pedigree met momentum. Silk collided with steel. And across seven ferociously contested sets, the result was a thriller worthy of the grandest billing...

With the two preceding matches meandering into soap-opera excess, Littler arrived like a coiled spring finally given permission to jettison into the air...