Last week, the two men met in the final of the Bahrain Masters with 17-year-old Littler storming to victory on that occasion.
But van Gerwen secured his revenge in Den Bosch on Saturday night, producing his best display of the tournament to secure a 8-6 victory.
In another absorbing battle where both men averaged over a ton, Littler came within a couple of millimetres of hitting a 170 that would have taken the final to a deciding test.
Van Gerwen wrapped things up to get the win on home soil – his first ever Dutch Masters victory.
Littler was in sublime form yet again despite coming up short. As he did in Bahrain, the teenager stormed past some of the game’s biggest names to reach the final having captured the imagination of the nation with his sensational run at the World Darts Championship earlier this month.
At Alexandra Palace, Littler came up short in the final against Luke Humphries but took back some bragging rights with a quarter-final victory over the world no1 on Saturday evening in Den Bosch.
Gerwyn Price was up next, having beaten the Welshman at the same stage in Bahrain last week. Both men missed darts in a tense final leg but Littler composed himself to secure another major scalp, making it back-to-back wins against the former world champion.
But in a repeat of last week’s final, van Gerwen showed his class to take the title.
‘This is what people like to watch. Everyone knows he is in form,’ van Gerwen told ITV.
‘Luke Littler will have a bright future ahead of him, we all know that. His scoring power is immense.
‘He doesn’t care about anything and he does his own thing. I think that’s good. It was a great tournament.
‘I needed my best performance. We all know I had some really tough games in the last year and I underperformed a lot of times. You have to make sure you keep your fighting spirit.’
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