Luke Littler will walk back to the oche in Copenhagen this week for his first appearance since winning his second Premier League title, and the timing gives the Nordic Darts Masters 2026 an immediate edge. The world No 1 opens against Norway's No 1 Cor Dekker as the tournament begins on Friday.
That return comes barely seven days after Littler reclaimed the Premier League trophy in a last-leg decider against Luke Humphries at The O2, a win sealed with a 111.67 average and a performance that underlined why he has become the player everyone else is chasing. The 19-year-old also won the inaugural Riyadh Season Saudi Arabia Darts Masters in January, so he arrives in Denmark with form, status and expectation all following him into the Forum Copenhagen.
The field in Copenhagen is not built around one man, though. A star-studded cast of 16 players will battle for the title in the World Series of Darts event, and Stephen Bunting is back with a clear target of his own: to become the first player to retain the Danish crown. He knows the place well enough to speak about it with easy conviction, saying he has great memories from last year, that Copenhagen is a pleasure to visit, and that winning there was a great honour.
Bunting's run to the title last year carried real weight. He beat Oskar Lukasiak, Jonny Clayton, Nathan Aspinall and Rob Cross on the way to a second World Series title, and the 41-year-old is now trying to repeat the feat after consecutive quarter-final exits in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in January. He has been drawn against Viktor Tingstrom in his opening match, which means the defending champion is being asked to answer the same question Littler is facing: whether the form that won trophies in other arenas can be carried straight into Copenhagen.
For Littler, the immediate test is simple enough. He has the biggest title of his career in the bank, the world No 1 ranking beside his name, and a first-round meeting with Dekker to settle before anything larger can be imagined. For Bunting, the challenge is sharper: he is the man everyone is trying to catch, but he must now prove that last year's Copenhagen triumph was the start of a defense, not just a perfect week.
