Littler opens Bahrain Masters title defence with win

Luke Littler, who turns 18 on 21 January, is the world number two

Newly crowned world champion Luke Littler started his Bahrain Masters title defence with a 6-3 victory against Lourence Ilagan in Sakhir.

Littler, who lifted his maiden PDC senior trophy at the tournament 12 months ago, was 4-1 up when Filipino Ilagan won back-to-back legs to put slight pressure on the 17-year-old.

However, a 142 checkout in the eighth leg put Littler back in control and in the end he cruised to victory with a 94.36 average.

There was a shock in the opening match when world number three Rob Cross was beaten 6-3 by Paolo Nebrida, ranked 91 places lower.

Nebrida, 30, claimed victory with double top to become the first player from the Philippines to win a match on the World Series.

World number one Luke Humphries averaged 103.66 and hit six out of six doubles to thrash home player Abdulla Saeed 6-0.

Thursday's first round pits eight players from the PDC circuit against eight players from Asia in a first-to-six-legs match.

The quarter-finals, semi-finals and final are all scheduled to take place on Friday.

Welshman Gerwyn Price booked his place in the last eight with a 6-3 win over 23-year-old Lok Yin Lee of Hong Kong.

Debutants Stephen Bunting and Chris Dobey are also through, beating India's number one Nitin Kumar (6-2) and Bahrain's Basem Mahmood (6-0) respectively.

Scotland's Peter Wright defeated Filipino Alexis Toylo 6-3, while Englishman Nathan Aspinall won 6-2 against China's Xiaochen Zong.

Quarter-final schedule

Luke Humphries (Eng) v Nathan Aspinall (Eng)

Stephen Bunting (Eng) v Chris Dobey (Eng)

Luke Littler (Eng) v Gerwyn Price (Wal)

Paolo Nebrida (Phi) v Peter Wright (Sco)