Stephen Hendry believes Judd Trump should be worried about his form after an indifferent start to the 2025/26 campaign for the Englishman.
The world number one has been a consistent force at the very top of the game for several years, frequently accumulating multiple titles across a single season.
But although Trump won three tournaments last term, he is yet to etch his name onto silverware in 2025 and is suffering from one of his longest barren spells of the last decade.
The Bristol potter reached the final of the Players Championship in March and the semi-finals of the World Championship soon after.
But since the start of the current campaign, he has been absent from the latter stages of events and is yet to even feature at the quarter-final stage of a ranking event.
“Judd might not be worrying. But if I was Judd – in his position as world number one – I’d be worried,” seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry said on the Snooker Club podcast.
“He has not won a tournament in the calendar year and he’s the world number one. He has been so used to being an absolute serial winner the last three, four, five years.”
“So if I was him, I’d be worried. I’m not saying he is, but I wouldn’t like to be in the situation.
“It just puts more pressure on the next event and then the next event. It’s easy to say that I’m sure he’ll come good because he’s the world number one.
“But you can’t really stay still or you’ll go backwards. There are so many more players who are there to take it off you.
“As I say, for me it’s worrying times for Judd. I said it in the last podcast that when he starts to lose, other players start to see that.
“Then they are not quite as frightened going in against him. They’re not quite as intimidated, are they?”
In the five ranking events that he has participated in so far, Trump’s best runs so far have come with last-16 appearances at the Wuhan, English, and British Opens.
While he still boasts a hefty advantage at the top of the two-year rankings, his buffer will start to decrease with a significant number of points to be deducted from his rolling tally this term.
Of more pressing concern is his current status on the one-year list, which is used to determine qualification for three big ranking events in the second half of the campaign.
Trump is down in 34th place on the one-year list based on prize money earned from ranking events this season, with only the top 32 qualifying for the World Grand Prix in February.
Beyond that, the top 16 will reach the Players Championship before the top 12 feature at the prestigious Tour Championship in Manchester.
“It’s a different kind of pressure he’s facing now,” Hendry continued. “He has probably not faced that kind of pressure for I don’t know how many years.”
“He has automatically been in everything, because he just kept winning. Always in the semis or finals or winning.
“He needs to get performances to get into those three huge events – the World Grand Prix is in Hong Kong and he’ll want to get into that because he spends a lot of time there.
“He won’t want to miss that one, and the Tour Championship right before the World with long-frame matches, you don’t want to miss that one.
“So yeah, it’s a pressure that he has not experienced. [But] I’m sure he’ll turn it around, I’m sure he’ll turn it around.
“Because he’s that good. He just needs a run of two or three matches where he wins them easily and wins them by playing really good snooker.
“Not scraping through them but winning them convincingly. Then I think that will get his mojo back.”
Trump will next have an opportunity to regain his form at next week’s Northern Ireland Open, which has generally been a happy stomping ground for him.
He has triumphed in Belfast on four occasions and reached the final again last year.
Trump has, however, received a tricky draw with his opening match in the last 64 against the rejuvenated Anthony McGill – a recent runner-up at the British Open.
Featured photo credit: WST
