LUKE LITTLER was knocked out of the Bahrain Masters after being stunned 6-2 by Gerwyn Price.
The PDC World Champion, 17, was defending his title but fell at the quarter-final stage.
Price averaged a remarkable 115.3 as he took down The Nuke in emphatic fashion.
The Iceman was lethal at the oche, hitting 60 per cent on his doubles and throwing seven 180s.
Price also missed double 12 for a nine-dart finish as he stunned the 17-year-old sensation.
It was a third win in a row for Price over Littler following his successes in New York and Wollongong.
Littler had come through his first-round match yesterday 6-3 against Lourence Ilagan.
But he admitted he was rusty after not throwing any darts since his world title triumph on January 3 against Michael van Gerwen.
He said after that match: “There weren’t any nerves. A bit of rust. A fresh set of darts.
“The ones I won the World Championship with are getting put away in a frame.
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“It’s very hard to break in a new set of darts. I played alright in patches.
“There were some bad patches there. I did the right things at the right time and punished him.”
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”Man in giant cow costume sings happy birthday to Luke Littler as he enjoys dinner with darts pals in Bahrain” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6367177720112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]Little will be gutted to fall to Price, saying earlier this week: “It would mean the world to retain this trophy.”
His next assignment on the oche will be the Dutch Darts Masters in the Holland city of Den Bosch on January 24-25.
[authenticated-scripts src=”%3Cscript%20class%3D%22palin-poll%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.co.uk%2Fpollingwidgets%2Fv3%2Fwidget.js%3Fquestion_id%3D103143%26game%3Dpolling%22%3E%3C%2Fscript%3E” type=”embedded” width=”100″ /]Littler’s first of 11 PDC titles came in this tournament 12 months ago.
He has since gone on to earn more than £1million in prize money, including a £500,000 cheque at Ally Pally earlier this month.
Earlier in the day’s play, fan favourite Stephen Bunting dispatched Chris Dobey 6-0 with a dominant display.
Bunting advanced to the final where he took on Price and won 7-4.