Judd Trump is putting pressure on himself to land another big title, saying he wants to take advantage of a period when he feels that he’s playing well.
The Englishman triumphed at the Shanghai Masters at the start of August but has suffered a series of unexpected defeats in ranking events since then.
At this week’s English Open, Trump got his campaign at the Brentwood Centre off to a positive start on Tuesday with a resounding 4-0 defeat of Jordan Brown.
“Any time you can win as comfortably as possible is good,” Trump told the World Snooker Tour. “You want to be saving as much energy as possible.”
“It has been a very busy period. There has been a tournament pretty much every week for a month and a half.
“You want to be trying to conserve as much energy as possible for the rest of the tournament. In the first couple of rounds, you want to breeze through.”
Trump beat old rival Kyren Wilson to secure the silverware in Shanghai, but as an invitational event it boasted no ranking points.
Soon after, the 37 year-old surrendered his long-held world number one position to Zhao Xintong.
Despite good displays in the recent ranking events, Trump exited the quarter-finals of the China Open to eventual runner-up Noppon Saengkham before bowing out of both the Wuhan Open and the British Open to champions Chang Bingyu and Jak Jones.
“It’s a difficult sport to play, because nine times out of ten you’re going to go home unhappy. You have to kind of understand that as well,” Trump continued.
“Throughout the season, if you can get one or two wins it’s a good season. There are a lot more lows than there are highs in snooker. It’s difficult.”
“I think I’ve got better at managing that, but a lot of the time I’m not at my best whereas this season I’ve felt pretty good, so it hurts a little bit more when you do lose.
“It’s just about managing expectations really. I’ve already won once, but because it wasn’t a ranking event it feels a little bit different.
“So even though I’ve not played badly and I’ve either lost to a winner or a runner-up, it’s still disappointing.”
The English Open, which Trump has won twice in his career, continues on Wednesday with the round of 32.
The 2019 world champion will look to extend his stay in the event when he takes on Ashley Carty, with several other marquee names also still involved.
The tie of the round is undoubtedly the contest between former Crucible king Wilson and rising Chinese star Chang.
Elsewhere, Mark Williams and Ding Junhui entertain Matthew Selt and Ashley Hugill respectively.
Mark Selby, who recovered from his defeat to Jones in the British Open final on Sunday by edging Ricky Walden in the first round here, plays Zhang Anda.
Shaun Murphy is another high-profile contender with the Magician up next against Jamie Clarke, while world champion Wu Yize clashes with Xu Si.
Other top 16 members still in the hunt for the £100,000 top prize and the season’s first Home Nations Series title include Barry Hawkins and Chris Wakelin.
Wakelin meets last year’s runner-up Zhou Yuelong with Hawkins in action against Daniel Wells.
Oliver Lines, who upset pre-tournament favourite Zhao in the last 64, takes on Yuan Sijun while Neil Robertson’s conqueror Luo Zetao meets Gong Chenzhi.
The full and updated draw is available on the WST website.
Featured photo credit: WST
Just want to note here that on Tuesday in the English Open, Ross Muir narrowly lost (3 – 4) to Xiao Guodong, a winner of two ranking events.
Some may recall that Bai Yulu lost (3 – 4) to Muir in the round of 64 during the British Open — in the decider she got in first with a break that ended at 59, letting Muir onto the table — he eventually won the 7th frame and the match.
I see on the WST website that Bai Yulu recently won her 3rd straight UK Women’s Championship, and is now ranked #1 again — even though she is not the current women’s world champion, having lost (3 – 4) in last 8 to the eventual winner (Thai teenager Panchaya Channoi), to me Bai Yulu is still the best of the women today — I hope we’ll soon see her in the last 32 of a ranking event.
>Ross Muir narrowly lost (3 – 4) to Xiao Guodong
Somehow and for some reason (?) I misstated the result: Ross Muir won (4 – 3) versus Xiao Guodong — which is even more of a credit to Bai Yulu, since she came very close to beating Muir in the British Open.
And vis-a-vis Luca Brecel, I see there are a LOT of good young Chinese players left in the draw of the English Open — to qualify for future events, Brecel must consistently defeat these good young players — at the moment, he’s having trouble doing that.
I’m starting to think that right now, the odds of Brecel dropping off the tour next year are greater than 50:50.
Judd Trump is in an era that has some parity but most of all, when comparing snooker to tennis, darts, and even the PGA, snooker plays less than half the tournaments available in the other sports. I haven’t calculated the percentages, but even before the tournament begins, Judd knows he could count who will win the tournament on the fingers on his hands. Yes there the odd surprises just like other sports. It is just like Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Man Utd. In Germany it is only FC Bayern Munich, PSG in France and the Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain.
Last year 65% in the top ten and jumps to 92% in the top 20 in snooker.
Just like Anda blowing his opportunity to take out Selby, Selby is still in line to win the English Open.
>Just like Anda blowing his opportunity to take out Selby
Some players have what it takes to prevail in these close matches against quality opponents, others don’t — this seems especially true when it’s done throughout an event, from the 1st round to the final — this appears to be an intrinsic quality of the individual — that’s the way it looks, anyway.
To me it seems rather uncommon for a mediocre player, and by mediocre (average) I mean in terms of winning versus losing, to develop the ability to consistently win tight matches much more often than losing them, especially against quality opposition, later in his career.
Obviously all the top players have this ability — that’s why they’re top players.