Singaporean Paul Lim will face former world champion Luke Humphries next at the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace in London. -- PHOTO: COURTESY OF PAUL LIM
LONDON (Reuters/AFP): A year after Luke Littler became the youngest winner of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) World Darts Championship, 71-year-old Paul Lim on Dec 13 became the oldest winner of a match in the tournament’s history.
Roared on by the usual raucous Alexandra Palace crowd in London, the Singaporean veteran stunned Dutch-born Swede Jeffrey de Graaf.
The previous oldest player to win a round was Northern Ireland’s John MaGowan in 2008 when he was 67. Lim turns 72 in January.
Said the Singaporean: “A moment like this has kept me going for all these years.
“The standard of play nowadays is not like how it was before. This tournament is the Super Bowl of darts, so I would say this is a good moment.”
Five-time world championship semi-finalist Wayne Mardle said hailed the Singaporean for “taking his chances” against de Graaf to register an “incredible” triumph.
“If you have the desire, the passion but most of all the ability, humans can achieve amazing things – and that was amazing,” said Mardle on Sky Sports.
De Graaf was just seven when Lim made his PDC debut 28 years ago. Lim will face former world champion Luke Humphries next, a player he beat in the 2021 edition of the tournament.
“I hope on a given day it can happen again, but I never give up. He is good, but he can be beaten,” Lim, known as the Singapore Slinger, said after his 3-1 win.
Humphries, who is 41 years his junior, told Sky Sports of Lim: “He’s amazing, he’s a legend. The crowd are going to be against me, so it’s going to be a tough game.”
Meanwhile, English prodigy Littler, who won the title in January aged 17, began his quest on Dec 11 with a 3-0 win over Darius Labanauskas of Lithuania.
Lim’s longevity has made him one of the most iconic names in darts and in 1990, he became the first player to hit a world championship nine-darter at the British Darts Organisation (BDO) world championship.
The Singaporean played in his first world championship in 1982 when it was still under the BDO. He competed in 12 editions and reached the quarter-finals when he hit the famous nine-darter in 1990.
He switched to the PDC in 1997 and at their world championship, his best finish was the second round in 2001, 2018 and 2021, when he eliminated Englishman Humphries, who would go on to be world champion in 2024. Before 2025, his last appearance in the event was in 2022.
At 70, Lim made a sensational run to the final of the World Darts Federation world championship and has shown few signs of slowing down. He now wears spectacles when playing and has reduced his training hours as he needs more recovery time. -- REUTERS, AFP
