- The World No 1 was beaten 6-4 by Cross despite achieving the nine-darter
Luke Humphries hit a nine-darter in his Premier League clash with Rob Cross in Brighton on Thursday – but still contrived to lose the quarter-final.
The World No 1 pinned the sport’s perfect leg to send the crowd at the Brighton Centre into a frenzy.
It is the 17th time a player has achieved the feat on the Premier League circuit since its inception.
It came amid technical difficulties for Sky Sports, whose coverage of the event was regularly interrupted by a loss of pictures.
Presenter Emma Paton was forced to apologise, while messages flashed up on screen insisting the broadcaster was ‘working hard to resolve the issues’. On several occasions coverage of the darts disappeared entirely, replaced by adverts of action coming up on the channel.
Fortunately for darts fans there were no problems as Humphries hit six 180s, followed by treble 20, treble 19 and double 12, to complete the nine-darter.
Luke Humphries hit a superb nine-darter in his Premier League clash with Rob Cross
But the Premier League leader was unable to turn his perfect leg into a victory as he succumbed to a 6-4 defeat by former world champion Cross.
The nine-darter had given Humphries a 2-0 lead but Cross roared back and eventually levelled at 4-4.
Cross claimed the last two legs to progress to the semi-finals and condemn Humphries, the 2024 world champion, to a first last-eight exit of the Premier League campaign.
He will face either Stephen Bunting or Nathan Aspinall in the next round, while the other semi-final is between Michael van Gerwen and Luke Littler in a repeat of the 2025 World Championship final.
