Congratulations to Judd Trump who has become the latest winner of a PTC event this season by coming back from 3-2 down to defeat Anthony Hamilton 4-3 this evening in Furth…
Following a largely difficult 2009/10 season for Judd Trump, the 21-year-old from Bristol has made a strong start to this campaign, winning at least two matches in each of the PTC events before now as well as qualifying for the venue stages of both the World Open and next week’s Shanghai Masters tournament.
Today however proved to be even better for the youngster as he began by downing tour newcomers Anthony McGill and Jack Lisowski before notably ending the two time title defence of Shaun Murphy in the semi-finals with a 4-2 victory.
Awaiting him in the final was Nottingham veteran Anthony Hamilton, for me the best player yet to have won a ranking event title and a man who a strong run in Newport back a couple of seasons ago apart, has struggled for form recently and dropped out of the top 32 as a result. Wins over Stuart Bingham, Daniel Wells and Bjorn Haneveer today however showed that he is playing some solid snooker at the moment and leading Judd both 2-1 and 3-2 he threatened to finally break his duck, albeit in what I would class as a ‘minor’ ranking event.
Anthony Hamilton – Photo courtesy of Janie Watkins
Judd however has come back before in matches and so it was to prove again as he levelled at 3-3 before taking the decider with a couple of scoring visits.
Following his struggles during last season it is good to see him finding his form again and continue to consign last season to the history books. Judd for me is a player who receives a lot of unfair criticism from certain quarters with the level of expectation placed upon him following his excellent junior career being almost impossible to live up to. It is fair to say that he has not progressed through the game quite as rapidly as some might have expected a few seasons ago but a Championship League title, Masters Qualifying title and now a PTC event win shows that he is on the right track. Up to 23rd in the provisional rankings he now has a real chance to kick on and show what he can do…
For Anthony Hamilton though it is another case of being so near yet so far, but the 1,600 ranking points gained do see him climb to 41st in the rankings and should see him stay in the top 48 beyond the first mid-season revision.
What of the event overall? Judging by the comments of Janie Watkins over at TSF it sounds like the event has been as popular as ever, despite its conversion to a ranking event which is pleasing to see.
From a fan point of view however I cannot let it pass without comment that the lack of updates, particularly on this final day have been disappointing. I understand that a new livescores service and indeed World Snooker website is in the pipeline but how hard would it be to put the scores up on a static page on the World Snooker website somewhere, rather than occasionally updating their fiddly drawsheets?
Hopefully this will be improved sooner rather than later as it is crucial for snooker to give the fans what they want at the moment and if a livestream is not possible, up to date scores are a must.