- Luke Littler was competing in his first match since his World Championship win
- He managed to hold off Lourence Ilagan to pick up a hard-fought victory
Luke Littler started life as a world champion with a hard-fought win at the Bahrain Masters on Thursday night.
Just 13 days after becoming the sport’s youngest ever champion at the age of just 17, Littler was back in action as he took on Filipino star Lourence Ilagan.
In a best of 11 legs match, Littler was pushed at times by his opponent but eventually prevailed 6-3.
His standout moment came in the eighth leg when he followed up a 180 with a 142 checkout.
Littler won this tournament 12 months ago, and his title defence is now up and running as he secured a spot in the quarter-finals.
Littler is due to turn 18 next week, and earlier on Thursday footage was posted online of him having an early birthday celebration with his family and fellow darts stars.
Luke Littler won his first match since becoming world champion on Thursday night
The likes of Stephen Bunting and Nathan Aspinall were spotted in attendance, as well as Littler’s mum, Lisa, with someone dressed in a bull costume delivering the cake, which read ‘Happy Birthday Luke’ and had a picture of him lifting the World Championship on.
His dad, Anthony, wrote on Instagram: ‘Class night last night’ on Instagram, accompanied by a cake emoji, and tagged the Buffalo Wings & Rings restaurant in Adliya Manama, Bahrain.
Littler was seen on his phone at the start of the video as traditional happy birthday music started playing and staff began to play instruments.
The teenager caught the eye of the camera, soon catching onto what was heading his way.
The giant bull then emerged, carrying the cake to the table as Littler moved his charger out the way and those in attendance clapped along to the music.
Littler then began to laugh and appeared to smile for the video, with the likes of Aspinall and Rob Cross – who was seen in conversation with Lisa – chipping in.
There appeared to be alcohol on the table, but Littler took a sip of coke before blowing out the three candles on the cake with 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’ playing in the background.
Those in attendance cheered, and a couple of the party appeared to call for him to drink a jagerbomb, with Littler shouting: ‘No, no, no!’. Littler turns 18 on January 21.
Liverpool versus Nottingham Forest was seen on televisions around the room, as well as other football highlights.
