Luke Humphries and Luke Littler both advanced to the third round of the Czech Open on the European Tour, with victories in Prague on Saturday. Humphries, a three-time champion at the event, ended the remarkable run of Beau Greaves, who had become the first woman to win a match on the European Tour with her first-round upset over Daryl Gurney.
The world number two averaged nearly 109 as he defeated the three-time women's World Matchplay champion 6-2. Humphries was full of praise for his opponent: "She's an amazing player, she pushed me all the way, it was a couple of bits towards the end of the match that got me through in the end. She's just a great dart player. If I had lost today, I wouldn't have been disgraced, I would have lost to a really great dart player." Humphries will now face Andrew Gilding in the third round.
World number one Luke Littler, returning after missing the last eight events on the European Tour, marked his comeback with a 6-4 victory over Germany's Niko Springer. Littler, who won the men's World Matchplay title in July but was beaten by Brendan Dolan in the semi-finals of a Players Championship event last month, averaged 108.59 in his win. "It's been a while since I've been to a European Tour," said Littler, who will next play Krzysztof Ratajski. "Full credit to Niko. I was 5-2 up and then suddenly it was 5-4 and he was right back in it. I've just produced a 108 average, but when I was practising backstage I couldn't hit anything."
Michael van Gerwen and Gian van Veen also reached the last 16 with respective wins against Mario Vandenbogaerde and Jeffrey de Graaf.
