Paul Nicholson has placed Luke Littler’s world No.1 ceiling and Wessel Nijman’s ranking surge at the centre of darts’ next major argument.
The former Players Championship Finals winner used his mid-season review for Sporting Life to frame Littler as the sport’s dominant major-event operator, while also pointing to Nijman as the player applying the sharpest pressure beneath him.
Why the rankings race now has two fronts
Nicholson’s key comparison is Michael van Gerwen’s seven-year spell as PDC world No.1. Littler, already clear at the top of the Order of Merit conversation, is being measured less by what he has won and more by how long his control can last.
- Littler: World Championship, UK Open, World Masters, Premier League and World Cup success have made his 2026 profile unavoidable.
- Nijman: Eight ranking titles before July, including two European Tour wins, have made his rise impossible to treat as floor-only form.
That makes the summer stretch more than a trophy chase. Littler’s next targets feed the clean-sweep narrative, while Nijman’s form now carries direct pressure into Blackpool and the autumn majors. NineDartNews has already tracked Nijman’s £314k ProTour lead, and this is the wider consequence: he is no longer just gathering titles, he is forcing the rankings debate to move with him.
Luke Littler has now won 13 PDC majors out of a possible 24 since January 2024, and all of the last six!
— Chris Hammer (@ChrisHammer180) May 28, 2026
For Littler, Nicholson’s claim sharpens the burden. For Nijman, it confirms the chase has stopped being theoretical.
