Luke Littler was finally pushed at the World Championships in the Round of 16 by Rob Cross who managed to take two sets off the Nuke, and could have forced a deciding set if he tightened up his finishing. It’s a common trend for players to up their performance levels when facing Littler, and I think we’ll see something similar from Ratajski here.

The Polish Eagle has long been a steady operator that you would expect to always average around the 95 mark and clear up 40-45% of his doubles. This was the exact performance that Ratajski put in against Luke Woodhouse, and his general output in the tournament so far has exceeded the level he produced during the season. 

Ratajski can live with Littler in bursts, he averaged in excess of 100 in three of the six sets he contested against Luke Woodhouse in the fourth round. This angle is also promising as Ratajski is a real scrapper and won’t let Littler have anything easy, with a good example being when the pair met at the UK Open right at the start of the year and Ratajski managed to push Littler, who eventually came away a 10-8 winner.

That performance was another example of textbook Ratajski, as he averaged 97.77 and hit 44.44% of his doubles. These numbers may not be enough to knock out Littler, but Cross produced similar numbers and managed to take two sets from the Nuke in the last round. 

That was also the first time that we see a little chink in Littler’s armour as he stared down the crowd after being booed and whistled at - it’ll be interesting to see how the crowd react to him here after that outburst, though I doubt Littler will be too phased by this.

Littler’s 180 hitting has always been at a ridiculous level, but it reached new heights against Rob Cross in the last round with Littler hitting 17 180s across 25 legs of darts. This takes Littler’s 180 tally at the tournament to 37 across 57 legs of darts (0.64 per leg). 

His 180 count against Rob Cross works out to 0.68 180s per leg, which is way higher than any other player has managed over the course of the season - and shows that Littler has even more gears to work through than we thought. Littler is averaging 0.44 180s per leg across the season as a whole, and he shouldn’t have too many issues in covering the 180 line here with the format increasing to first to five sets.

I can’t see Littler whitewashing the Polish Eagle here, Ratajski has upped his seasonal numbers at this tournament and has the capacity to take a few sets off the Nuke. Ratajski has shown that he can live with Littler in bursts, but it’ll just be about surviving the legs where Littler goes into overdrive.

One notable aspect of Ratajski’s game which is worth watching here is how good he is against the throw. His against throw averages across the season are nearly four points higher than his average with throw (96.27-92.97). This suggests that Ratajski will be at his best when Littler has the darts, possibly promising an early break of throw here. 

Littler has levels that no other darts player can reach, he averaged 125.25 in the third set of his match against Rob Cross, and also closed out the final set with an average of 116.90 - hitting eight 180s across these two sets. Littler will need that scoring power here as Ratajski looks to be the most capable player he’s played at the World Championships so far.