Teenager Luke Littler created more history by becoming the first player to win five nights in a Premier League season with a 6-4 victory over Michael van Gerwen in Birmingham.
The 18-year-old, who is the youngest world darts champion after his success in January, has also secured his place in the season-ending play-offs at O2 Arena on 29 May.
He won four nights in the opening eight weeks but had failed to reach the final in the past four weeks.
No player has won more than four nights since the 16-week league phase was introduced in 2022 with Jonny Clayton (2022), Gerwyn Price and Michael Smith (2023) and Littler, Luke Humphries and Van Gerwen (2024) all achieving that mark.
Littler spoke at the start of the evening about wanting to finish top of the league in order to secure the first semi-final at the play-offs, so that he would have a break before the final, and is now on track to achieve that.
He needed last-leg shootout wins over Stephen Bunting and Nathan Aspinall to reach the final but improved as the evening went on.
The world number two missed two darts at tops in the opening leg and that allowed seven-time Premier League Van Gerwen to break, before he missed double 16 in leg two after two stunning darts at bullseye.
Littler kept pace with Van Gerwen, who was in his second final of the year, though and recovered the break in leg six, before breaking again in leg 10 to secure the win and avoid a final-leg decider.
He averaged 102.5 to Van Gerwen’s 94.31 and was six from 13 on the checkouts.
“I’m very happy. The fifth nightly win was going to come at some point but it’s been a few weeks since I actually won on a Thursday,” Littler told Sky Sports.
“I’m nine points clear, so I’m very happy and very confident I’ll stay at number one.”
On the importance of topping the league phase, Littler added: “It’s something I’ve always thought in my head, playing the first semi-final is so crucial because there is not that big of a turnaround.”
