Bahrain Masters: Luke Littler and Luke Humphries win first-round matches but Rob Cross is knocked out

New world champion Luke Littler began his title defense at the Bahrain Masters, defeating Lawrence Ilagan 6-3 in Sakhir. Littler, who lifted his first PDC senior title at the same event 12 months ago, had a 4-1 lead before Filipino player Ilagan won two consecutive legs, putting some pressure on the 17-year-old.

However, Littler regained control of the match with a 142 checkout in the eighth leg, eventually winning comfortably with a 94.36 average. An upset occurred in the first round as world number three Rob Cross lost 6-3 to Paul Nebreda, who is ranked 91 places lower.

The 30-year-old Nebreda won the match with a double 20 checkout, becoming the first Filipino player to win a match in the World Series. World number one Luke Humphries averaged an impressive 103.66 and hit all six of his doubles attempts in a 6-0 whitewash of home player Abdulla Saeed.

The first round on Thursday saw the eight players from the PDC tour take on eight players from Asia, with matches played as best of 11 legs. The quarter-finals, semi-finals and final are all scheduled to take place on Friday. Welsh player Gerwyn Price progressed to the quarter-finals with a 6-3 win over 23-year-old Lee Lok Yin from Hong Kong.

Debutants Stephen Bunting and Chris Dobey also advanced, defeating India’s top player Nitin Kumar and Bahrain’s Basem Mahmood by scores of 6-2 and 6-0 respectively. Scotland’s Peter Wright defeated Filipino player Alexis Toylo 6-3, while England’s Nathan Aspinall defeated China’s Zong Xiaochen 6-2.

The quarter-final matchups are as follows: Luke Humphries (England) vs Nathan Aspinall (England); Stephen Bunting (England) vs Chris Dobey (England); Luke Littler (England) vs Gerwyn Price (Wales); Paul Nebreda (Philippines) vs Peter Wright (Scotland).