Luke Littler accused by fans of 'giving up' during loss to world champion Luke Humphries

Fans have accused darts superstar Luke Little of giving up during his recent match with world champions Luke Humphries.

Littler lost 6-3 to Humphries during the third round of the Swiss Darts Trophy on Sunday, knocking him out of the tournament.

The 17-year-old received a bey to the second round, where he bested local player Bruno Stockli 6-3, but failed to do enough to get past the world number one.

And fans of Littler are not happy, as they believe that the Englishman gave up in the middle of the match once he felt that he could no longer bring back a victory.

Reacting to the match on social media platform X, one fan wrote: "Strange last leg there from Littler, he just gave up".

Another added: 'Littler needs to sort out those petulant visits when trailing. He's more than capable of reeling off 4 or 5 legs on the spin against the world's best players, never over until it's over - unless you do that of course."

While one fan joked: "Littler just wanted to get home for Utd v Spurs at half 4 😂"

Some fans also suggested that the reason that 'The Nuke' struggled in the match maybe due to the new darts that he has been using to promote their release to the public.

Writing about the new darts, one fan speculated: "Littler can not play on with these darts. It's written allover his face. He hates them."

While another noted: " 'Bad advertisement for Littler's new darts'.

Luke Littler has taken the sport of darts by storm in the past year. (Image: Getty)

Littler spoke about the new darts after beating Stockli on Saturday, saying: "Everyone knows my new darts only came out a few days ago.

"I tried them out and at one point I was debating whether to switch and go back to my old ones because of the crowd, they were obviously on his side.

"I just had to find my shots and the 145 [checkout] really done it for me.

"The darts are all the same, it's just the gold grooves on the barrel. I think it went well tonight."

Littler's next big tournament will be the the World Grand Prix which gets underway from October 7.