Rob Cross beat Joe Cullen 8-3 to win the 2025 PDC ProTour season-opening Players Championship One in Wigan, where world champion Luke Littler had gone out in the third round.
The Robin Park Leisure Centre welcomed the newest additions to the professional circuit alongside established players in a 128-strong field, with a top prize of £15,000.
Littler – beaten by Michael van Gerwen on the opening night of the Premier League in Belfast – had started with a 6-4 win over Canadian veteran Jim Long and then beat Martin Lukeman 6-3, in which he averaged only 87.4.
Cullen, though, proved too strong for the 18-year-old in their third-round contest, landing eight maximums in a convincing 6-3 victory, taking five straight legs as Littler missed 15 doubles.
‘The Rockstar’ then pushed onto the semi-finals, where he edged out world number one Luke Humphries 7-6 in a last-leg decider.
Cross – who was crowned world champion in 2018 – had come back from 3-0 down to reel off seven consecutive legs as he beat Andrew Gilding 7-3 with a 108.5 average to book a place in Monday’s final.
The ‘Voltage’ continued his momentum against Cullen, hitting a 129 finish on the bullseye to open up a 6-3 lead before closing out victory with a 40 per cent doubles success to pick up his 10th Players Championship title.
CROSS CLAIMS PC1 SUCCESS 🏆
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) February 10, 2025
Rob Cross secures his second PDC title of 2025 in Wigan, producing a stellar display to defeat Joe Cullen and clinch his tenth Players Championship crown! 👏 pic.twitter.com/mu4RBAJ2iR
There had also been early exits for former world champions Gary Anderson – who was beaten 6-4 by Ricky Evans in the first round – and Peter Wright, who lost by the same scoreline to Adam Hunt.
Michael Smith, who recently revealed his problems with arthritis, went out to Belgium’s Dimitri van den Bergh, while women’s world champion Beau Greaves slipped to a 6-4 defeat against Owen Bates on her Pro Tour debut and world number five Stephen Bunting lost to Gilding.
The second of 34 Players Championship events takes place in Wigan again on Tuesday.
