World champion Luke Littler denied native favorite Mike de Decker to defend his title on the Belgian Open.
Littler gained final yr’s occasion whereas making his European Tour debut in Wieze, and the 18-year-old made it back-to-back wins with an 8-5 conquer De Decker within the closing.
The world quantity two noticed off Luke Woodhouse (6-4) and Dave Chisnall (6-4) on Sunday earlier than beating 14th seed James Wade (7-3) within the semi-finals.
That arrange a gathering with world quantity 21 De Decker, who had made an exciting run to the ultimate at his house occasion having not beforehand been past the final eight of a European Tour occasion.
The 29-year-old Belgian had dumped out world primary Luke Humphries within the second spherical on Saturday, and continued that kind by beating Martin Schindler (6-3) and former world champion Gerwyn Value (6-4) on Sunday.
De Decker got here again from 6-4 all the way down to edge a 7-6 win over Ross Smith within the semi-finals and fell 3-1 down in opposition to Littler, who gained his first UK Open title final weekend and evening 5 of the Premier League on Thursday.
{The teenager} managed to remain clear, going right into a 7-3 lead, and though De Decker briefly threatened one other fightback, Littler in the end proved too sturdy.
After averaging 94.36 in Saturday’s second-round win over Ryan Searle, Littler topped 100 in all 4 of Sunday’s wins, with 102.87 within the closing in comparison with De Decker’s 92.25.
Littler’s checkout charge was additionally far higher as he registered 53.33% in comparison with 38.46% from De Decker.
