Luke Humphries put the wind up his Premier League Darts rivals before modestly dubbing rival Luke Littler the best in the world.
Cool Hand was sensational as he breezed to success on Night One in Belfast. The World No.1 was like a hurricane as he grabbed maximum points with a comfortable 6-1 Final win over Chris Dobey. Fresh from his success at the Winmau World Masters five days previously, Humphries was too good for Nathan Aspinall in the last-eight before winning a last-leg shootout against Michael van Gerwen in the semi-finals.
He then blew Dobey away and said: “I thought I played well in the first game. Against Michael. I was very fortunate. It’s not usually like him to miss that amount of doubles. And then in that Final, me and Chris noticed a little bit of a breeze. It was tough to play through, but they were blowing my darts in the doubles, so I was happy! Hopefully there’s a breeze more often!
“It’s a great start for myself and I thought I followed on from last weekend. I knew it was going to be tough and I think this is the hardest Premier League for a very, very long time.
“There’s a lot more players in form. The PDC made the right call. You’re not going to see someone stuck at the bottom for a long time. It’s all going to chop and change.
“Nights like this might not happen as much as you want. I did great last year and I hope I can do the same this year.”
However, despite winning in Milton Keynes last weekend, now in Belfast and holding the top spot in the rankings, Humphries declared his big rival Littler as the best in the business at this moment. The Nuke lost out to van Gerwen in an epic quarter-final to leave Northern Ireland with no points, but the evening victor said: “Luke Littler, the way he’s playing, it’s unbelievable. You are watching that Michael van Gerwen game and it’d be very lucky for anybody to match another game like that.
“He’s by far one of the greatest dart players I’ve ever seen in my career. I’m not disrespecting myself, I just think he’s the best player in the world and, if he goes out, I’m the one to beat. But he’s definitely the man to beat. He plays darts at such a great pace. He smashes in the trebles and doubles.
“This is what happened to me last year. Everyone wanted to beat you. There’s a target on your back and you’re averaging 114, 108 and everyone’s beating you. So he’s still the best player in the world.
“But for me I know that I can still play at a decent standard and I can still win. Of course, you want to top the league. You want to be the one that everyone watches out for. You want to do what Luke did last year, but I’m not too focused on being the top player. As long as I’m in the top four, that’s all that really matters.”