In his latest column, PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf examines Gerwyn Price's recent success against Luke Littler, with the pair set for a potential semi-final showdown on Night Seven of the BetMGM Premier League in Cardiff...
Luke Littler is approaching the halfway point of his 2025 Premier League campaign in good shape, having reached four nightly finals, won two nights, averaged 104 and thrown nearly twice as many 180s as every other individual player.
His current 16 point-haul leads the way for the eight-player Premier League field, and unless he were to suffer a catastrophic lapse in form between now and May, Littler will be almost certain to qualify for the season-ending Play-Offs.
But if he were to encounter Gerwyn Price in London, the reigning World Champion would be in the awkward position of facing a player who, despite inferior overall statistics, has completely dominated their head-to-head rivalry unlike any other PDC player.
Price has won the pair’s last six matches, five of which took place in front of the TV cameras, and has done so by the massive overall margin of 39-21 in legs.
Expanding the scope of their match record to the beginning of last year's Premier League, we find that Price has accumulated an underwhelming TV record of 32 wins and 30 losses against all opponents not named Littler.
However, Price boasts a stunning 7-2 dominance of the player regularly breaking form records and winning more stage titles than any other PDC player. What accounts for this?
Even taking into account Price and Littler's first two meetings on the 2024 World Series (both won by Littler), Price still comes out ahead 7-4 in their career head-to-head record.
Yet a quick perusal of the statistics throughout those 11 matches suggests that Littler has been more than holding his own against the Welshman.
Littler's 99.87 average across those matches bests Price's 98.3 (even though Price's figure is skewed by an anomalous 115 average recorded on the World Series this year).
The teenager has thrown more 180s and hit doubles, big numbers, trebles and even bullseyes at a higher rate.
Therefore what is Littler doing wrong to end up with a 4-7 losing record against a player whom he is outperforming on the fundamentals of 501?
The answer is inefficiency - the inability to convert those high averages into legs won.
180s thrown or trebles hit are of no use if one fails to return to the board for the double set-up, and Price has been extremely effective in his matches with Littler at getting legs won in 15 darts, leaving his opponent on a low score without additional attempts at doubles.
Littler has had 85 chances to win a leg in 15 darts or fewer, but has done so only 34 times (40%), while Price has cleaned up within 15 darts 49% of the time.
For the ten matches in which such data is available, Littler's doubles percentage with his last dart in hand is less than 30%.
Three of Price's victories were fought to a deciding leg - only those three sudden-death legs make the difference between a 7-4 record in Price's favour to a 4-7 record in Littler's.
In each of the three matches, Littler scored well (a combined 106 average), leaving himself on scores of 56, 48 and 20 - but each time he allowed his opponent back to the board, and Price took full advantage.
With Littler waiting on a double, Price converted 44% of his double attempts to win the leg overall; with Price on a double, Littler could return the favour only 33% of the time.
Littler and Price's most recent meeting in Nottingham last week illustrates how inefficiently Littler's forces were deployed.
In a match in which the Welshman was out-averaged by nine points, but nonetheless won 6-3, Littler won only two out of six legs by the end of his fifth visit, was left on a score less than 100 in every leg which he lost, and hit 20% of his last-dart-in-hand doubles.
Price could have averaged less than 92 (to Littler's 103) by throwing all three darts in his four two-dart checkouts, and the result would have been exactly the same.
The darting world knows that Littler is one of the most talented players to pick up a set of arrows, but even if he throws as many 180s as ever, he is making little headway against a player 22 years his senior - a player Littler is already about to eclipse in terms of ranking TV titles at the age of 18.
Does Price’s stage presence put him off? Is there something about his pace that flummoxes the Warrington wonderkid?
For the moment, this is beyond the scope of statistical analysis, and it will not matter if Littler repeats as Premier League champion - but eventually, he will have to come up with an answer to the questions posed to him by Price in order to achieve total domination of darts.
Follow Christopher on Twitter @ochepedia