Luke Littler readying himself for Mensur Suljovic challenge amid slow play talk
By Jonathan Veal, Press Association
Luke Littler knows he will have to find a way to deal with the gamesmanship of Mensur Suljovic if he wants to keep his World Championship bid on track.
The world number one cruised into the third round with a 3-0 win over David Davies and looks a good bet to become the first man since Gary Anderson in 2016 to defend an Alexandra Palace title.
On paper, Christmas came early on Sunday as two of his biggest obstacles to the semi-final crashed out, with his likely quarter-final opponent Gerwyn Price beaten, along with possible third-round opponent Joe Cullen.
Littler will instead meet Suljovic after the Austrian beat Cullen 3-1 in a tense affair, which saw Cullen accuse his opponent of cheating after slow play.
Suljovic is notorious for playing at a snail’s pace and is likely to decrease his speed even further in a bid to unsettle Littler.
But the teenager, who admits he prefers to play faster players, will be ready for the dark arts.
“It’s Mensur in my way now. As a player, you’ve just got to face what’s in front of you,” he said.
“You’ve got to face the challenges of what the player’s going to do.
“There was a lot of talk about Mensur throwing slow. I’ve just got to be ready for it and see what happens.
“For myself and a lot of other players, we have fast throws.
“You don’t want to be stood there for as long. Because you’re getting cold and you just want to get on with it. But, if you start off darts slow like Mensur, he’s not going to change for anyone. He’s not going to change for me. He’s just going to do his job and he wants to win. I want to win.”
Cullen did not take defeat well, accusing Suljovic of cheating and saying he wanted “no part” in darts if that was the way he was going to play.
But Littler laughed off the suggestion it was cheating.
“Joe’s felt like he’s slowed it down. It’s not cheating,” he said.
“It’s just for Mensur, obviously he flicks his flight and obviously he’s doing it until he feels settled.
“And if he does it, obviously, a bit longer against me, then I just have to wait for him and throw my darts.”
Littler admitted that Suljovic had entered his direct messages when the draw was made in November, predicting they would meet.
“It was on Instagram. I always check my messages and my requests,” Littler explained. “He said something like, ‘kind regards, good luck, see you in round three’ or something. And yeah, it’s happened and like I said, hopefully we can have a good game.”
