The 2025 PDC World Darts Championship is just around the corner and, once again, one of the favourites in the field is Luke Humphries.
Luke Humphries is the 2024 World Darts Champion, and, in all honesty, he’s been the best player in the world for 18 months at this point.
Nathan Aspinall called Humphries the best player in the world, and for good reason.
Cool Hand won almost every title there is to win towards the back end of 2024, and he capped that off with a world title.
However, Humphries did have his wobbles at Alexandra Palace last year, and his run to the final was far from smooth as Ricardo Pietreczko and Joe Cullen both took him to final-set deciders.
Speaking to Live Darts, Humphries has been discussing his World Championship win, and he says that he was shocked by just how hard this tournament was compared to other tournaments.
Luke Humphries shocked by difficulty of World Championship win
Humphries says he was shocked by how hard the World Championship run was after blitzing through tournaments such as the Grand Slam and the World Grand Prix last year.
“The way I was playing towards the back end of last year, it would have been easy for me to just think I was going to win, but winning major tournaments and wining the World Championships are two completely different things,” Humphries said.
“It’s so much harder. I didn’t realise how much harder it was, but it was mentally challenging. I rode my luck in miments and I might have to do that this year, you have to believe in yourself and the good thing for me is that I’ve done it before and that does help you with experience.”
Luke Humphries’ run to the 2024 World Darts Championship
Humphries says he was surprised by how hard his run to the title was last year, and, he did make hard work for himself in some of these games.
Humphries didn’t necessarily have a nightmare run to the final. In fact, he didn’t even play a single top 10 seeded player throughout the entire tournament.
However, he was pushed to his limits in those early rounds, and he was very nearly dumped out by Joe Cullen at one point.
| Luke Humphries’ route to the 2024 World Darts Championship | Opponent | Score | Humphries’ average | Opponent’s average | Opponent seeding |
| Second Round | Lee Evans | 3-0 | 93.58 | 92.33 | Unseeded |
| Third Round | Ricardo Pietreczko | 4-3 | 91.38 | 91.02 | Unseeded |
| Fourth Round | Joe Cullen | 4-3 | 99.23 | 98.66 | 14th seed |
| Quarter-final | Dave Chisnall | 5-1 | 103.65 | 97.51 | 11th seed |
| Semi-final | Scott Williams | 6-0 | 108.74 | 94.93 | Unseeded |
| Final | Luke Littler | 7-4 | 103.67 | 101.13 | Unseeded |
That game against Cullen went the distance, and it took an 11th-leg tie break in the final set to swing the game in Humphries’ favour.
That game could’ve been the end of Humphries’ run, but, instead, he kicked on and became champion of the world.
Almost every World Champion has been in a similar situation. Peter Wright almost lost his first game to Noel Malicdem back in 2020, while Jamie Lewis very nearly put Gerwyn Price out in Round 2 in 2021.
Humphries now has the experience of becoming World Champion once, and that should stand him in good stead to repeat the trick this year.
Russ Bray thinks Humphries will retain his title, but whether or not he can do so remains to be seen.