Luke Littler v Ryan Searle live stream | World Darts Championship Semi-Final Preview
Reigning champion Luke Littler continues the defence of his World Darts Championship title with a semi-final showdown against Ryan Searle on Friday.
Littler is bidding to join Phil Taylor, Gary Anderson and Adrian Lewis as only the fourth player to retain the PDC world title and cap off an extraordinary year of dominance which has seen him add a further five major ranking titles including the UK Open, World Matchplay and Players Championship Finals.
The teenage sensation put down an immediate marker and avoided a huge potential banana skin when he overcame Lithuania’s Darius Labanauskas in straight sets on opening night.
The Nuke had a ten-day break between rounds before brushing aside Welsh debutant David Davies in three sets with a 97 average in the Last 64 and going on to whitewash Mensur Suljovic 4-0 with a 107 average.
His first real test came against 2018 World Champion Rob Cross in the Last 16, but the 18-year-old averted the need for a last-set decider by sealing a 4-2 victory with a 106.5 average, before emphatically whitewashing Krzysztof Ratajski 5-0 to take his unbeaten run to 17 matches in major ranking competition.
Littler is now vying to extend his unbeaten record in major ranking semi-finals to ten wins and progress to a third consecutive World Championship final in as many appearances.
Searle, meanwhile, is entering uncharted territory having previously failed to make it beyond the Last 16 stage in seven attempts at Ally Pally.
The 20th seed has stormed into only his second major ranking semi-final more than four years on from finishing runner-up at the 2021 Players Championship Finals.
Twice a Players Championship event winner in 2025, Searle remarkably reached the quarter-finals without losing a set, whitewashing Chris Landman, Brendan Dolan, Martin Schindler and James Hurrell, with ton-plus averages in the latter two matches.
He then romped into a 3-0 lead over Jonny Clayton on New Year’s Day before eventually closing out a 5-2 victory to provisionally move into the world’s top eight for the first time.
Ominously for ‘Heavy Metal’, he has lost all five of his previous meetings with Littler in PDC competition to date.
The match gets under way from around 7.45pm GMT and will be contested over the best of 11 sets, with either two-time World Champion Gary Anderson or reigning European Champion Gian van Veen awaiting the winner in Saturday’s final.
How to watch Luke Littler v Ryan Searle live stream
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4) Select the play icon next to the match in progress and the live stream window will appear
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