World champion Luke Littler denied local favourite Mike de Decker to defend his title at the Belgian Open.
Littler won last year’s event while making his European Tour debut in Wieze, and the 18-year-old made it back-to-back wins with an 8-5 triumph over De Decker in the final.
The world number two saw off Luke Woodhouse (6-4) and Dave Chisnall (6-4) on Sunday before beating 14th seed James Wade (7-3) in the semi-finals.
That set up a meeting with world number 21 De Decker, who had made a thrilling run to the final at his home event having not previously been beyond the last eight of a European Tour event.
The 29-year-old Belgian had dumped out world number one Luke Humphries in the second round on Saturday, and continued that form by beating Martin Schindler (6-3) and former world champion Gerwyn Price (6-4) on Sunday.
De Decker came back from 6-4 down to edge a 7-6 win over Ross Smith in the semi-finals and fell 3-1 down against Littler, who won his first UK Open title last weekend and night five of the Premier League on Thursday.
The teenager managed to stay clear, going into a 7-3 lead, and although De Decker briefly threatened another fightback, Littler ultimately proved too strong.
After averaging 94.36 in Saturday’s second-round win over Ryan Searle, Littler topped 100 in all four of Sunday’s wins, with 102.87 in the final compared to De Decker’s 92.25.
Littler’s checkout rate was also far greater as he registered 53.33% compared to 38.46% from De Decker.