Luke Littler next match after European Championship exit

Luke Littler is out of the European Championship after Krzysztof Ratajski beat him 10-6 in the quarter-finals in Dortmund, Germany, on Sunday, 25 October. The defeat ended his bid to win every PDC major before his 20th birthday.

He does not have long to wait for his next match. Littler is back on screen on Friday in a live Netflix special, and his next proper tournament, the Grand Slam of Darts, starts in under three weeks. Tonight’s final in Dortmund goes ahead without him.

What happens next: Littler plays in Netflix’s live special Beat Luke Littler on Friday, 30 October, then defends his Grand Slam of Darts title in Wolverhampton, England, from 14 November.

Littler’s next match: Netflix on Friday, then Wolverhampton

Date	Event	Where	UK coverage
Fri 30 Oct 2026	Beat Luke Littler: 20 amateurs get one leg of 501 each, £501,000 (about $660,000) to anyone who wins	Live special	Netflix
14 to 22 Nov 2026	Grand Slam of Darts (defending champion)	Wolverhampton	Sky Sports
11 Dec 2026 to 3 Jan 2027	PDC World Championship (defending champion)	Alexandra Palace, London	Sky Sports

Source: Netflix, Sky Sports and event listings, checked 25 October 2026.

The Netflix show is an exhibition and counts for nothing in the rankings. The Grand Slam is the next title he can add.

How Ratajski ended a seven-match losing run

Ratajski, from Poland, had lost all seven of his previous meetings with Littler, according to Sky Sports. He won seven legs in a row to lead 7-1, and although Littler fought back to 8-6, he then missed a 121 checkout at 9-6 down and Ratajski closed it out in the next leg.

Littler averaged under 100 and hit six of his 16 attempts at doubles, Sky Sports reported.

“I played him many times, always lost. He beat me many times,” Ratajski said afterward, as reported by Dartsnews. Littler’s verdict, quoted by Sky Sports: “Played well in the lead up to today, but just didn’t click for me earlier.”

The contrast with Saturday was stark. Against Nathan Aspinall in the second round, Littler won 10-5 with an average of 114.47, according to Sky Sports, the second-highest in the tournament’s history behind Phil Taylor’s 118.14.

Darts tonight: European Championship semi-finals and final

The evening session in Dortmund started at 18:00 GMT, and every match is best of 21 legs. Ross Smith is already through: he beat Gerwyn Price 11-7 in the first semi-final, according to Sky Sports’ live coverage, after both men missed match darts in the closing legs.

Time (GMT)	Match	Round and status
18:10	Ross Smith v Gerwyn Price	Semi-final: Smith won 11-7
About 19:10	Martin Schindler v Krzysztof Ratajski	Semi-final: result to come
After the second semi	Ross Smith v Schindler or Ratajski	Final

Source: PDC, Dartsnews, Flashscore and Sky Sports, 25 October 2026. Later times depend on how long earlier matches run.

Smith, from England, is the top seed and the 2022 champion, and he reached the semis by beating Luke Woodhouse 10-6 with a 107 average and seven 180s. Price, who has never won this title, had beaten Stephen Bunting 10-3. In the other half, Martin Schindler, playing in front of a home crowd, won nine legs in a row to beat Jonny Clayton 10-1. Ratajski called his own win “my biggest achievement in the European Championship.”

The champion takes £150,000 (about $200,000) from a £750,000 prize fund, and the runner-up £80,000. Defending champion Gian van Veen went out in the second round on Saturday, beaten 10-6 by Woodhouse, and Luke Humphries, the 2025 runner-up, withdrew through illness before the event.

In the UK every session is free on ITV4 and the ITVX streaming service. Elsewhere, the PDC lists DAZN and Viaplay among its broadcast partners, and its PDCTV service streams the event in countries without a TV deal.

The one major Littler has never won

The European Championship is now the only PDC major missing from Littler’s collection, according to Sky Sports, Flashscore and Dartsnews. He turns 20 in January 2027, before the next edition, so the clean sweep before 20 is gone.

His record in Dortmund explains why it has been the hardest one to crack. He has never got past the quarter-finals here, and in recent weeks he has also lost early at the World Series of Darts Finals and the World Grand Prix.

Event	Round of defeat	Beaten by (score)
European Championship 2024	First round	Andrew Gilding
European Championship 2025	Second round	James Wade (10-7)
World Series of Darts Finals 2026	Quarter-final	Jonny Clayton (10-4)
World Grand Prix 2026, as defending champion	First round	Luke Woodhouse (2-1 in sets)
European Championship 2026	Quarter-final	Krzysztof Ratajski (10-6)

Source: Flashscore, ESPN, PA Media via Express & Star, Nation.Cymru, Sky Sports.

The field is chosen differently too. Qualification comes from the European Tour Order of Merit, the prize-money list from the PDC’s European Tour weekends, and the first round is only best of 11 legs. Short matches give a lesser player a better chance against the best one in the room.

Why short formats catch out the favourite

Darts has a simple piece of arithmetic behind its upsets, and the Netflix show on Friday puts it on display.

Richard Osman, the writer and TV presenter who is the show’s analyst, said on his podcast The Rest Is Entertainment that Littler has about a 15% chance of winning all 20 legs, which means roughly an 85% chance that somebody walks away with the £501,000, Dartsnews reported. Osman did not publish a model, and his figures do not quite fit together. For a 15% chance of a clean sweep, Littler would need to win about 91% of single legs against these players. If his chance per leg were 85%, the chance of winning all 20 would be below 4%.

The point holds either way. Each small chance of losing multiplies across many attempts. A European Championship title needs five straight wins in four days, against a field selected for its form on the European Tour, and the opening match is the shortest of the lot. On Saturday Littler averaged 114.47. Twenty-four hours later he averaged under 100 and went out.

His next chance of a title comes on 14 November in Wolverhampton, where the Grand Slam opens with a group stage rather than a single knockout match.