Luke Humphries wins on the second day of Players Championship action in Leicester after 8-6 victory over Brendan Dolan, who had beaten Luke Littler in semi-final; Littler, who made his first two appearances of 2026's series this week, with work to do if he is to make November finals.
Luke Humphries beat Brendan Dolan in the final to win his third Players Championship title of the season on the second day of action in Leicester.
Humphries, who reclaimed the world No 2 position in the PDC rankings from Gian van Veen during the course of the day, beat Ireland's Dolan 8-6 to win PC28 for his first title in the series since PC17 in May, also held at the Mattioli Arena.
Dolan had defeated Luke Littler 7-4 in their semi-final to deny the world No 1 a blockbuster meeting with Humphries.
Humphries beat Mike De Decker 7-4 in his semi-final, two rounds after surviving six match darts against Danny Noppert to win that match 6-5.
Littler was making just his second Players Championship appearance of the season after a quarter-final defeat to eventual PC27 winner Jermaine Wattimena on Tuesday.
Having sat out the first 26 Players Championship events this year, Littler is aiming to make the top 64 on the Order of Merit over the tournaments that remain to qualify for the finals in Minehead in November amid his bid for a historic clean sweep of PDC major titles this season.
A quarter-final and semi-final appearance in Leicester mean he now sits in 125th place in the Order of Merit, £16,750 behind 64th place. Six events remain before the finals with Littler needing to play, and play well, in further events if he is to have a chance of making up the further ground required to qualify.
He still needs to win the World Series, World Grand Prix, European Championship, Grand Slam of Darts and Players Championship Finals this season in order to achieve something no one has ever managed in the sport.
The World Series event takes place in Amsterdam on September 17-20 and finishes two days before the next Players Championship double header gets under way in Den Bosch, by which time Littler will know whether or not he remains on course for the clean sweep.
Littler has won every major title on the PDC circuit so far in 2026 – the World Championship, Masters, UK Open, Premier League, World Cup of Darts and World Matchplay.
On Wednesday in Leicester, Littler made light work of Stephen Rosney in the first round, winning 6-4, before his day nearly ended in the next round as he survived six match darts against world number 107 Benjamin Pratnemer, eventually winning a final-leg decider.
Quickfire wins against Martin Schindler, Andy Boulton and Krzysztof Ratajski sent him through to the last four, but Dolan was too good for him
Humphries returned to competitive action this week for the first time since his shock round-one exit to Cameron Menzies in the World Matchplay on July 20.
He lost 6-3 Cam Crabtree in Tuesday's first round in Leicester but returned on Wednesday to win all seven of his matches.
