Saudi Darts Masters field sees World Championship cult hero join Luke Littler

The darts off-season is very short and the stars of the oche return at the Bahrain Darts Masters and Saudi Arabia Darts Masters next week.

It was only on Saturday night that Luke Littler beat Gian van Veen to win the World Darts Championship for a second time, landing the first ever £1m top prize in the process.

Littler and Van Veen are among eight PDC representatives playing in Bahrain on January 15-16 and in Riyadh on January 19-20.

They are joined by Luke Humphries, Michael van Gerwen, Stephen Bunting, Gerwyn Price, Danny Noppert and Nathan Aspinall.

That octet play in both events, with a slightly different set of eight Asian representatives in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Getting the nod in both, though, is cult hero from the recent World Championship Motomu Sakai, who earned himself a load of new fans thanks to his antics at Alexandra Palace.

His walk-ons were wild and he also entertained in his post-match press conference after a 3-0 first round win over Thibault Tricole.

The man known as The Creature said: ‘When I was 16 years old, I was told by my friends that I could become popular among girls if I played darts – so that is why I started.’

He added: ‘Have I always been this crazy on stage? Yes!

‘I always make weird faces and everybody tells me that I look like a creature when I do that. I believe that the more I dance, the more my darts fly well.’

Sakai lost his second round match to another unexpected star of the World Championship, Andreas Harrysson.

Also involved in both events is darts legend Paul Lim who, at the age of 71, won his first round match at Ally Pally in December against Jeffrey de Graaf.

The Singapore Slinger’s campaign came to an end in the second round against Luke Humphries, but he is still playing great stuff in his eighth decade.

Lim became the first player to hit a 9-darter at a World Championship all the way back in 1990.

The 2026 World Series of Darts will also feature the Nordic Masters and US Masters in June, the New Zealand Masters and Australian Masters in August, before the World Series of Darts Finals in Amsterdam in September.

This will be the first time a professional darts event has been held in Saudi Arabia, with the atmosphere likely to be very different to the festive crowds at Ally Pally.

‘If we can’t drink in a country where we must respect their traditions and their laws, we don’t drink,’ Barry Hearn told Sky Sports.

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