PC28

Luke Littler’s hopes of qualifying for the Players Championship finals suffered another setback as he was beaten by Brendan Dolan in the semi-finals of PC28 in Leicester.

The world champion went a step further than he managed at Tuesday’s PC27, but still fell short of the title, which was won by fellow Englishman Luke Humphries with an 8-6 victory over Dolan.

“Luke has been by far the best player in the last 18 months and he deserves the world number one spot,” said world number two Humphries after his victory.

“He’s won everything and I am going to be the only one who’s trying to stop him.

“I want to go on and win a major this year. I don’t want him to have a clean sweep – as much as everyone would love to see it.”

Littler, meanwhile, climbed from 141st to 125th in the order of merit with prize money of £10,500 and posted on Instagram: “We are so on the move.”

But the semi-final defeat leaves the world number one with work to do in the race to reach November’s finals in his attempt to complete the calendar sweep of ranking events in 2026.

Only the top 64 players in the Players Championship qualify for Minehead.

And Littler, who skipped the first 26 events on the circuit, is currently £16,750 behind 64th-placed Shane McGuirk.

On Wednesday, the 19-year-old beat Benjamin Pratnemer, Martin Schindler and Krzysztof Ratajski to reach the final four, where he was denied by Northern Irishman Dolan.

The world number one has largely skipped the floor events this year in an effort to manage his schedule.

With the projected cutoff expected to exceed £30,000 after all 34 events, and only seven events remaining, Littler might travel to Den Bosch next month to boost his hopes of reaching the finals.

He has previously stated his intention to only feature in the UK events, and the two in Leicester on 4 and 5 November complete the qualification stage.

Littler was defeated by Jermaine Wattimena in the quarter-finals of PC27 on Tuesday.