Luke Littler's Opponent Ryan Searle Opens Up on His 'Incurable' Eye Condition

Luke Littler’s PDC World Darts Championship semi-final opponent, Ryan Searle, suffers from a rare eyesight condition which impacts his game.

Reigning world champion Littler, as expected, breezed to a 5-0 quarter-final victory over Krzysztof Ratajski on Thursday (January 1), while Gian van Veen and two-time world champion Gary Anderson also secured their spots in the final four.

38-year-old Searle beat number five seed Jonny Clayton by five sets to two to ensure he stayed in the race for the record £1 million prize pot.

The Englishman came into the tournament ranked 20th in the world by the PDC Order of Merit and previously reached the fourth round of both the 2021 and 2022 world championships.

Despite struggling in the sport’s showpiece event until this year, Searle has been a professional since 2016 and has won seven Players Championships.

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And what makes this even more impressive than it already is is the fact that he lives with a rare genetic eye condition called Autosomal Dominant Optic Atrophy (ADOA).

Symptoms can include blurred vision as well as difficulty recognising colours with ADOA worsening with age.

Currently, there are no treatments to prevent or reverse the condition, which causes the optic nerve to become progressively thinner.

Searle has even admitted that he has difficulty seeing the board at times, but this has not held him back in his pursuit of a successful career in darts.

"There's no cure for what I've got, so I'm stuck with it,” Searle said in an interview following his quarter-final victory over Clayton.

“I wear contact lenses now to try and take a bit of the blurriness away from my vision.

"But sometimes on stage I'm asking the caller what I've scored and it puts me in a bit of a difficult position.

"If I can inspire people that maybe can't see as well to pick up the game, then it means a lot to me."

Searle has also passed the hereditary condition onto his two children and explained how his daughter suffers “really bad” while his son doesn’t have it as bad as his father.

"When it gets to about six feet, she can see, but after that her vision gets really bad,” Searle added.

Searle’s semi-final opponent, Littler, also recently opened up about having eye surgery when he was a child to repair strabismus – a condition where the eyes don’t align.