Gary Anderson reveals the Luke Littler moment that sparked fresh World Championship glory 'fairytale'

Gary Anderson reckons special Luke Littler has lit him up for a fairytale bid.

The Scottish hero is gearing up for a hat-trick bid at the Paddy Power World Championship and faces Jeffrey de Graaf in a Sunday opener. Beforehand, the phenomenal Littler takes to the stage 24 hours earlier with all eyes on the teenage superstar who is breaking boundaries in-and-out of the sport. Anderson and Littler had a classic match at last month’s Grand Slam and, although he lost out 16-15 in a last-leg decider, the two-time champ savoured it.

Just over a decade ago, a narrow Ally Pally defeat to Michael van Gerwen fired him up to go back-to-back at the Worlds and now that Littler epic at the Grand Slam has Anderson’s juices flowing as he gets set for a title tilt. He said: "It really got me going, proper game, four legs up on him, I had to hold my throw once and I made a mess of it.

"Even afterwards, I watched when Luke beat me, you could see the kind of relief in his face, so I went, I’ve pushed you, It’s good, it gives me a wee bit of a buzz and it does kind of give you that twinkle. Little things give me a wee tweak and I need that to keep going. There’s some cracking darts players out there and it’s still nice to be involved playing against them.

"If you look at his games in the semis and the final, it was an old 54-year-old that kind of took him all the way.I like things like that, I like to see, can I still play up to their standard. My finishing that night was great, my scoring wasn’t too good.

"Minehead first round, my doubles were absolutely shocking. If I could have got a bit of that scoring against Luke as well as my finishing, then it might have been a different story. But it was a pleasurable game to play in. I mean, the