Cam Crabtree will take on Germany’s Jan Schmidt in the 2026 PDC Winmau World Youth Championship final next month, after stunning World Champion Luke Littler in a dramatic semi-final showdown in Wigan on Monday.
Crabtree – last year’s Development Tour champion – held his nerve superbly to defeat the world number one in a deciding-leg affair and book his place in November’s Minehead showpiece.
The 23-year-old raced into a 2-0 lead against 2023 World Youth Champion Littler, but the sport’s premier player soon regained control with a brutal three-leg spell. The Warrington sensation followed up a magnificent 164 checkout with back-to-back 14-darters to move 3-2 ahead, but Crabtree was undeterred, hitting back with 92 and 100 finishes to take a 5-4 lead.
Littler responded with a terrific 117 skin-saver to force a last-leg decider, although Crabtree wasn’t to be denied, firing in a 16-dart hold on double six to prevail with a 97.91 average.
The event began with a round-robin format on Monday, as the 128-player field were were split into 32 groups of four, with the top two players from each group advancing to the knockout phase. Crabtree overcame Kai Clark, Lleyton Molyneux and Hungary’s Almos Kovacs in the group phase, before easing through to the last 16 with successive 6-2 wins against Lenny Schlueter and Lewis Mayes.
Following an emphatic 6-1 drubbing of Joseph Simpson, Crabtree then ran out a 6-4 winner against Kaya Baysal in the quarter-finals, after the 16-year-old had celebrated his maiden Development Tour title on Sunday.
This set up his blockbuster meeting against Littler, who succumbed at the semi-final stage of the World Youth Championship for a second straight year, following his defeat to Beau Greaves 12 months ago.
Schmidt, meanwhile, is bidding to join his compatriot Max Hopp in becoming the second German player to lift the World Youth Championship, following a series of impressive displays in Wigan.
The 22-year-old, who reached the last 16 of July’s European Darts Open, safely navigated his way through the group stage with victories over Kyle Manton, Connor Mitchell and Keanu van Velzen.
Having averaged 99.97 in a superb 6-2 win against Owen Roelofs, Schmidt then fought back from 5-4 down to deny Denmark’s Daniel Kortbek, surviving two match darts in the closing stages.
However, the German continued his bid by dumping out second seed Sebastian Bialecki in the last 16, before winning through another last-leg thriller against Henry Coates – a winner on the PDC ProTour in July.
Charlie Manby awaited Schmidt in an intriguing semi-final tie, but it was the emerging German who claimed the spoils, averaging almost 95 to wrap up a resounding 6-3 victory.
Littler was bidding to join Gian van Veen and Dimitri Van den Bergh in becoming a two-time World Youth Champion, although that ambition will have to wait until 2027 following his semi-final exit.
The world number one breezed through the round-robin phase with a trio of 5-1 victories, although he was forced to defy an inspired display from 16-year-old JDC star Lewis Cook in the last 64.
Cook raced into a 3-0 lead with an average north of 110, only for Littler to win six of the last seven legs and advance to a meeting against Czechia’s David Fidler, which he won 6-1.
Littler then recorded a 6-4 success against 16-year-old Archie Self in the last 16, before sweeping aside Harrison Leigh in the last eight.
The 19-year-old was joined in the semi-finals by Huddersfield star Manby, who dumped out Switzerland’s Ansh Sood, Germany’s Jarod Becker and Owen Bates earlier in the event.
The 2026 Winmau World Youth Championship final will take place at Butlin’s Minehead Resort on Sunday November 29, between the semi-finals and final of the Ladbrokes Players Championship Finals.
Crabtree and Schmidt will now also feature in the upcoming Grand Slam of Darts, which will take place in Wolverhampton from November 14-22.
