Stephen Hendry was unhappy with Judd Trump’s performance at last week’s Masters where the world number one exited without silverware again.
Trump hasn’t picked up a trophy on the main tour since claiming his second UK Championship crown toward the end of 2024.
The 36 year-old went through the entire 2025 calendar year failing to emerge triumphantly at any event, losing in four finals across the period.
It had looked as though things might be set to turn around at the Alexandra Palace when Trump reached the semi-finals.
A terrific first-round display against Ding Junhui – during which he compiled a hat-trick of century breaks – was followed by a hard-fought defeat of Mark Allen in the quarter-finals.
Trump then established a seemingly commanding 3-0 advantage over John Higgins in their last-four tie at the Ally Pally.
But the Englishman allowed his experienced opponent to mount a comeback, appearing to become beset with nerves the longer the showdown progressed.
Trump made a couple of trademark clearances to reach five frames on the scoreboard, and one would have thought those contributions would have settled him.
Yet an incredible botched brown in the ninth frame allowed Higgins in to keep the match alive at 4-5, and the Scot then won the ensuing two frames to snatch an unlikely victory.
Hendry, six times a Masters champion, was left unimpressed with Trump, who was hoping to capture the Paul Hunter Trophy for the third time in his career.
“Trump was disappointing,” Hendry said on the latest episode of the WST Snooker Club podcast alongside Mark Watson.
“At 3-0, he has missed two easy reds where he’s completely on top of the match. I said in the studio that John Higgins looked like he hadn’t been in a semi-final before.”
“He looked so nervous and so edgy at the start of that match. But Judd should have been 4-0 up, there’s no doubt about it.
“Then he probably would have won. Later, he missed a straight brown off the spot to win 6-3. I tipped Judd and I think most of us tipped Judd to win this event.
“But again he flattered to deceive a little bit, the world number one. He [had] looked great in the first round!”
By contrast, Hendry was full of praise for eventual Masters champion Kyren Wilson, who ended up beating Higgins 10-6 in Sunday’s final.
Wilson had earlier survived two entertaining tussles with Neil Robertson and Wu Yize where, on both occasions, he scrambled his way back from 5-4 behind to win in deciders.
The title-deciding showdown was tough going at times, but Wilson was ultimately a deserving champion who compiled eight century breaks throughout the week’s play.
“It was an incredible turnaround,” Hendry said, referencing Wilson’s transformation in form following his miserable exit at the UK Championship last month.
“He looked a broken man in York. He was sat in his chair while his opponent was potting, looking at bits of paper and all sorts.”
“So obviously over Christmas and the New Year he was in China, like a lot of players were, doing exhibitions, and he’s found something.
“I didn’t actually get to the bottom of it last week whether it was a different cue from York or if it was just the same cue that had different stuff done to it.
“But he was a completely different player. It was very powerful snooker. Kyren’s game is not like [Mark] Williams – dropping balls in dead weight.
“It’s all about the balls hitting the leather, and it’s really powerful snooker. It’s aggressive snooker as well.
“His break-building play is quite different from a lot of the top players. He wants to get the pack open as soon as possible.
“A lot of the players now rely on their cue-ball control, pick off the reds and go into the pack when it’s absolutely necessary.
“I love the way Kyren does it. At the first opportunity, the reds are everywhere. It gives him great chances to score.”
Both Trump and Wilson will be back on the baize next week when they participate in 2026’s opening ranking event, the German Masters at the Tempodrom in Berlin.
Featured photo credit: WST
I agree with Hendry on all points, especially his enjoyment over Kyren Wilson opting to split the pack more readily than most players do now. I’m not so keen on how hard Wilson hits the ball, though. My preference is for the sweeter ball striking of an O’Sullivan or Williams.
Hendry maintains two consistent themes about snooker: the will and ambition to win, and the winning advantages of attacking snooker, particularly getting a frame open as soon as possible. Judd Trump’s performances over the last 13 months compared to the prior 3-4 years of his career when his snooker had seemed effortlessly composed in attack and victory (except at the Crucible which I suspect he doesn’t like almost as much as Neil Robertson.) was always going to get Hendry’s full critical attention, and it has on several occasions already! I don’t know what has changed, but the Juddernaught seems to struggle to string together those frame-match-tournament winning runs. Perhaps Hendry feels that Trump has “gone off the rails” more than he has “gone off the boil” professionally speaking, but is choosing his words with some discretion? I don’t think anyone in snooker would have predicted a 13 month title draught for the Juddernaught after his last win was added to his bulging tally at the UK’s in ’24.
Often I’ve seen Trump criticized for being, to put it bluntly, too often a choker — and I have also watched a few matches where Trump did not seem to, let’s say, ‘rise to the occasion.’
But I’ve also seen far more performances where Trump was so good, you could almost call his play spectacular.
To me, he is, overall, the best player on the tour today — and very often the most entertaining — and snooker, is not just a sport, it’s entertainment.
So I’ll pass on criticizing Judd Trump the snooker player.