LONDON -- Luke Littler is preparing for the possibility of a trilogy match with Luke Humphries in the Premier League final on Thursday, but has knocked back suggestions that the world No. 2 is the better player on current form.
Littler and Humphries have gone head-to-head on numerous occasions since they rose to the top of the sport at the 2024 World Championship when 'Cool Hand Luke' overcame a then-16-year-old Littler in the final.
'The Nuke' beat Humphries in the Premier League final five months later, hitting a famous nine-darter on his way to claiming his first major title.
Humphries got his own back with an 11-8 victory over Littler in the final 12 months ago.
The chances of a trilogy meeting had appeared slim for much of this Premier League campaign as Humphries bumped around in the lower half of the eight-player league table, while world No. 1 Littler finished top after repeating the record six nightly wins he first managed last year.
However, Humphries found a purple patch of form in the latter weeks of the league phase, reaching four consecutive nightly finals and winning three of them to finish third.
For the pair to meet, Humphries will have to overcome the impressive Jonny Clayton, while Littler will have to get past Gerwyn Price in the other semifinal.
Asked if he thinks Humphries is heading into Thursday night as the best player in the world right now, Littler replied: "Not really. I think if you're number one, you're the best in the world no matter what -- you're number one for a reason and you should be better than everyone."
Humphries, who finished with the highest average across of any player across all 16 weeks of Premier League action (101.2), pointed to his impressive numbers when looking ahead to finals night.
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Asked if he sees himself as the most in-form player of the final four, Humphries replied: "If you're looking at stats, probably yeah. And I guess the results would say four finals on the trot -- it's pretty decent. So yeah, I'd say I'm probably playing the best, but coming into a night like tomorrow night, it's kind of all on the day -- you could feel great, or you could feel average.
"I've got to have momentum with me and hopefully it will continue to flourish tomorrow."
Littler, 19, insisted he isn't looking past the match against Price.
"I think everyone's probably bored of me and Luke meeting in the finals, but we're one and two [in the world rankings] and if we both play well all the time then we're going to meet in the final. But I'm just fully focused for the semifinal," he said.
Littler will fancy his chances of getting to the final, given he has beaten Price in each of their last eight meetings. The sequence includes a nightly win for Littler on night seven in Dublin in which the two-time world champion roared back from 5-0 down to claim a 6-5 victory.
In Clayton, Humphries will have to beat the player with the highest checkout percentage in the tournament (45%).
"As long as my name is on the trophy again, I don't really care who it's against and how I do it," Humphries said.
"But of course I still just love playing against him [Littler], and it's always a great game of darts. Of course it'd be nice, but if it's Gezzy, then it's Gezzy. And it might be Gezzy and Jonny. So there's not definitive way of knowing who's going to be in the final tomorrow -- it's such a hard tournament to win."