The Bullet’s friends were not impressed.
Stephen Bunting has been accused of “bizarre” behaviour during his World Championship semi-final loss to Luke Littler. The crowd favourite was no match for the eventual winner at Ally Pally, unable to recover from a 4-0 deficit to eventually see “The Nook” win 6-1.
Despite the pressure of the event, the atmosphere on stage was friendly, with the two players regularly exchanging greetings and congratulating each other on their wins. And when the 39-year-old Bunting finally won his only set, he chuckled and jokingly called for more applause from the crowd.
A closely fought first set saw Little take the lead 3-2. But the lack of aggression from Bunting didn’t impress Dave Chisnall, himself a semi-finalist at the tournament in 2021.
“The big disappointment of the semifinals was my fellow Steven Bunting,” he said. “He was amazing in the first set, but he would have been attacked to lose 3-2, despite the high average.”
In the second half of the match, he added: “I don’t hear that I slag the fork, not for the game manship, but after all the sets were a bit strange, I thought there was a fist raising.”
There was no such relationship in the finals as the teenager won Michael Van Garwen. But the contest was almost as one-sided, with Littler again racing into a 4-0 lead before prevailing 7-3 to claim his first world title.
“You could tell Michael was having a bad run of luck in the final,” he added. “He missed too many doubles in the final, but he’ll be back. There aren’t too many folk a three-time world champion in their 30s.”
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