Luke Littler was booed in Brighton as he suffered a second successive Premier League quarter-final loss following a 6-4 defeat to birthday boy Stephen Bunting.
A week on from his much-publicised spat with Gian van Veen in Manchester, the world champion appeared rattled by a hostile crowd on night 10 of the competition on the south coast.
He was subjected to jeers as he entered the arena and then suffered ironic cheers following a poor start from which he could not recover.
Bunting, who turned 41 on Thursday, could easily have wrapped up victory far earlier as he was gifted multiple opportunities on his opponent’s throw and hit just six of his 21 darts at a double.
Littler showed little reaction to the surprise defeat, shaking Bunting’s hand and exiting the stage meekly after averaging only 84 and failing to hit a single maximum.
It was the 19-year-old’s lowest average in a televised PDC match.
