Luke Humphries has fired a savage dig at Peter Wright ahead of their meeting at the PDC World Darts Championship.
The annual darts championship is gracing London's Alexandra Palace once again with Humphries seeking to defend the title he won at the last tournament at the start of this year by beating rising star Luke Littler.
Humphries is the current world number one and he reached the fourth round after beating Nick Kenny 4-0 to set up a meeting with Wright.
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Wright is a two-time world champion having won the tournaments in 2020 and 2022 and is seeking the third crown of his career after he beat Jermaine Wattimena 4-2 in his third round encounter.
Wright is 25 years senior than Humphries and the victor of their match will make their way to the quarter-final stage which takes place on New Year's Day, with the final being on January 3.
But ahead of their fourth round meeting, there is clearly no love lost between both men with Wright and Humphries backing themselves to come out on top prior to their encounter.
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Making it clear that beating the sport's younger talents is big motivation for him, Wright said: "Luke Humphries and Luke Littler drives me on because I know I can still compete with them.
"What I'm doing in practice, I can compete with these guys and actually be better than them.
"These little old guys can still do it."
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But responding to Wright's views, Humphries made it clear that his opponent's so-called 'mind games' will not work on him and even went on the offensive, stating that he is only one more world title away from matching his opponent's tally, despite being around two-and-a-half decades younger than him.
Humphries said: "How many times have people said 'this is going to happen, this is going to happen' and it never happens.
"I think Peter loves to play the mind games. They don't work with me.
"I'm one world title away from almost matching his career and I'm about 25 years younger, so I think one [more] world title would match everything that he's achieved in the game."
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The pair will lock horns on stage in the evening session from 7pm on Sunday, December 29, and if the pre-match comments are anything to go by, it could be quite the encounter.
Topics: Darts
John McDougall