Well, where do I start about this young talent that has emerged in the Snooker world? There’s so much to talk about as he has had an eventful career since he started at a very young age and has also created his own brand of snooker, he calls his snooker – and I’m quoting this – “naughty.” Maybe he feels its naughty snooker because of how he plays the game. He has superb potting skills, and his cue power, well let’s just say it’s powerful and leave it at that. What this report will do is explain the wonders and the talent this 22 year old from Bristol has had since he first started playing snooker.
Let’s take a look at his early years in amateur snooker. Judd was the ‘English Under-13’ and ‘English Under-15’ champion. He went on to reach the semi-final of the ‘World Under-21 World Championship’ at the age of 14. At this age he became the youngest to achieve a break of 147, you got to say that is amazing. To make this achievement better, he beat the record set by Ronnie O’Sullivan set in 1991. It was then in the 2005/06 season he joined the professional tour.
At the Welsh Open in 2005 he became the youngest ever player to qualify for the final stages of a ranking tournament. He then carried on his good form to the China Open where he yet again reached the last 48 however he lost 4-5 to Michael Holt. In 2007 Judd Trump became the third youngest snooker player to reach a World Championship and is only 1 of 4 players who have played at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre (the other 3 are Ronnie O’ Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and Liu Chuang). In the event Trump played 2005 Champion Shaun Murphy losing 6-10 in the first round even though he was leading 6-5.
Trump couldn’t build on his form in 2007/08 as he could only reach the last 32 of the Welsh Open. He could of qualified for the World Championship that season but lost to Joe Swail 9-10 despite having a 9-7 lead. Quite a common happening for the young lad, winning but then gives away the frames to lose the match – never mind.
However things changed for Trump in the 2008/09 season where he managed to reach the venue stages of the first 4 events of the calendar season. At the Grand Prix he capitalised on Graeme Dott’s withdrawal by beating Joe Perry to reach the last 16. After this came his biggest win of his career at that time over Ronnie O’Sullivan winning 5-4. He played against John Higgins in the semi-final but lost 4-6. He went on to defeat 2-time World Champion Mark Williams to qualify for the 2008 Bahrain Championship. He also won a qualifying tournament to get to the 2009 Masters. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to qualify for the 2009 World Championship after losing 8-10 to Stephen Lee having led 6-3 – a bit of déjà vu going on here, lead then lose; this was set to change however. Trump qualified for the 2009 Premier League winning 4 out of his 6 matches finishing 2nd in the table before losing his semi-final to Ronnie O’Sullivan.
There isn’t much we can talk about Trump’s 2009/10 season because he failed to progress beyond the last 32 in any of the season’s tournaments. In 2010 he decided to join Romford-based snooker agency Grove Leisure.
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| Image courtesy of Google Images |
The 2010/11 was a good season for Trump. It first started when he reached is first ever professional ranking tournament final at the 2011 China Open beating former Masters Champion Mark Selby 10-8 to win his first title. Rom this victory he climbed into the top 16 of the World Rankings. On his way to winning this trophy he made his 100th competitive century break. Trump didn’t need to win the China Open as he had already qualified for the year’s World Championship. In the first round he was drawn against the Australian Neil Robertson who he defeated 10-8. In the following rounds he beat Martin Gould 13-6, Graeme Dott 13-5 and Ding Junhui 17-15 to reach his first World Championship final against John Higgins. The final was immensely competitive with both players showing how good they are at the game, however Higgins prevailed winning the match 18-15.
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| Image courtesy of Google Images |
The 2011/12 season so far has proved to be good for Trump. Despite losing to Mark Davis 3-5 in the first event of the season at the 2011 Australian Goldfields Open he went on to win the 2nd PTC of the season beating Ding Junhui 4-0 in the final at the South West Snooker Academy. At the Shanghai Masters he lost in the first round 1-5 to Stuart Bingham, he also lost a semi-final at the 8th PTC event before re-discovering his form as he won the 9th event held at Antwerp (Belgium) beating Ronnie O’Sullivan 4-3 in just over an hour. On 11th December 2011 Trump won the UK Championship. He beat Dominic Dale 6-4 in the last 32 before beating Ronnie O’Sullivan 6-5 in the second round and claimed he was “outplayed” by Ronnie O’Sullivan despite progressing to the next round. He dispatched Stephen Maguire 6-3 and then faced Neil Robertson in the semi-final. It was a tense and close affair between the players and Trump eventually triumphed, winning 9-7 but claimed that Robertson was hindering Trump’s style. He said Robertson was “slowing it down and making things awkward” nevertheless he reached the final where he played Mark Allen. Trump found himself 1-3 down but won 7 frames in a row taking an 8-3. Despite a late and worthy come back from Allen, Trump won 10-8. After the event snooker legend Steve Davis said that Trump was “spearheading his generation” which is 100% true.
Trump has shown over his playing career so far the potential he has. To reach a World Championship final deserves credit on its own and to win the UK Championship will only improve the confidence this lad has. His ranking has also dramatically changed, in the 2006/07 season he was ranked 74, but now is going into 2012 ranked 5th – a career highest so far. I think it’s inevitable that Trump will reach the number 1 ranking because of the potential he has got. He is going to be a great player to watch and I’d love to see him win his first World Championship in the coming year. All I can say is to everyone in professional snooker, beware, the Juddernaut is about and is going to be around for a while.
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| Image courtesy of Google Images |
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