World number one Luke Humphries got his first Premier League Darts win over Luke Littler with a 6-4 victory in the final on night four in Exeter to take control at the top of the table. Littler - who won in Glasgow, but then suffered an early exit in Dublin - had broken to open up a 3-1 lead before Humphries responded and then levelling the match at 3-3.
Humphries then took a scrappy eighth leg on double 12 before landing tops to break at 5-4 with the darts for the match. After building on five perfect darts and with Littler's scoring levels dropped, Humphries took out 92 to secure a first Premier League win over the world champion at the seventh attempt.
"It felt like hard work, but felt good," Humphries said on Sky Sports. "I felt like my game was in a good way after I struggled. "My finishing was good in moments and it wasn't so good in moments. "Luke played fantastic tonight, (but) he didn't play that great in the final and I managed to put my foot in the gas right at the end of the legs.
"It's the first time I've beaten him in the Premier League. It gets harder every time you lose.". Humphries, who also won the opening night in Belfast, sits top of the table on 15 points, seven clear of Littler. "It's a great start. I would love to win the group, it's a dream start and I need to keep pushing," Humphries said.
In his semi-final, Humphries dug deep to find two stunning finishes of 167 followed by 116 in the deciding leg as he saw off Rob Cross, who had battled back from 3-1 down to lead 5-4. Littler had beaten Humphries to win on night two in Glasgow, but then failed to follow that up as he went out in the quarter-final stage in Dublin.
The 18-year-old, though, had earlier produced a clinical display to beat Stephen Bunting 6-3, landing 10 maximums with a match average of 112 - and leaving 'The Bullet' still in search of a first win in this year's event - before then seeing off Nathan Aspinall 6-2 to book his place in the night's final.
In opening match of the evening's action at Westpoint Arena, Cross edged out Michael van Gerwen in last-leg decider. Aspinall's quarter-final against his close friend Chris Dobey had also gone the distance, while Humphries beat last week's nightly winner Gerwyn Price 6-4.
