Stephen Bunting beat Luke Humphries 6-3 in Sheffield, and the premiership results left him with his second nightly win of the Premier League season. The final also pushed Humphries up to third in the standings and locked in the semi-final pairings for finals night at London’s O2 Arena next Thursday.
Bunting’s Sheffield surge
Bunting closed the final with seven 180s and a 106.37 average. He led 5-3 before starting the next leg with six perfect darts and finishing it in 12 darts, a burst that cut Humphries off before the match could turn.
The night was his fifth-place finish overall, and it ended a campaign that had already started to tilt back in his direction after night four in Belfast. He had reached the Sheffield final by beating Jonny Clayton 6-3 in the quarter-finals, then coming from 2-0 down to beat Gerwyn Price in the semi-finals.
Humphries in the standings
Humphries entered Sheffield as the defending champion and still left with a better route into finals night than he might have faced with a win. His defeat in the final moved him up to third overall, which means he will meet Jonny Clayton in the semi-finals rather than Luke Littler.
That draw matters because the other semi-final pairs Gerwyn Price with Littler at the O2 Arena. Humphries had already needed a last-leg decider to get past Michael van Gerwen in the quarter-finals, before beating Littler 6-1 in the semis, so his path to the final was already loaded with pressure before Bunting finished the job.
O2 Arena line-up set
Bunting’s final-night résumé also carried the weight of what he did earlier in Sheffield. Price had only been in the way because Bunting had produced three straight 100-plus finishes and a 161 checkout to recover from 2-0 down, then carried that form into the final against Humphries.
After the match, Bunting said, “I was probably a bit hard on myself. I'm up to fifth! I'm so happy with that,” and added, “People wrote me off and said I shouldn't be in it. I want to be in this Premier League for years to come. That was a massive statement from me.”
