Trump Topples O’Sullivan For Grand Prix Title

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It did not always look like it was going to go his way, but Judd Trump has defeated Ronnie O’Sullivan 10-7 this evening to win the 2015 World Grand Prix in Llandudno, taking home the winner’s cheque of £100,000 and breaking his duck against the Rocket in major finals.

When these two met earlier this season in the finals of the Champion of Champions and UK Championship events, we were treated to a couple of breath-taking, high-scoring affairs but from the opening frame today it felt like a very different match.

Despite having taken the opening frame, Judd in particular struggled during the afternoon session and at 4-1 down, looked to be all over the place, or ‘gone’ as is common for snooker players to say. To his credit however he was able to play through it and recover to 4-4, before O’Sullivan took the final frame of the session to carry a narrow lead into the evening.

Again it was to be Ronnie who made the stronger start, taking the opening two frames, the second with an excellent break which actually started with an outrageous fluked red up into the green pocket, to which Judd could only mouth to word ‘unbelievable’, but he dug in well and took the next two frames to close to within a single frame again.

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On their resumption, Judd was able to win a frame with a single scoring visit for the first time, a magnificent tournament high run of 142 to level at 7-7, but it was to be the 16th frame that would really tell with Trump potting a tight long brown and clearing for 9-7.

Though O’Sullivan was to have a chance in the next frame, by this point there only looked to be one winner and Trump duly delivered as his opponent did not return to play for snookers.

In many ways it was probably not a final that will be remembered in years to come, but for Judd it represents a significant breakthrough against an opponent against whom he admitted after the match, he still struggles to relax against in the early part of their matches.

Clearly that was in evidence again today and he is not the only one to feel the pressure when playing Ronnie, but importantly he was able to turn it around soon enough today before the gap became an insurmountable one.

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In truth I did not feel that Judd was playing quite as well this week as perhaps he was towards the end of 2014, but as he spoke about after his incredible comeback against Martin Gould yesterday, he was able to win with his ‘B-game’ in a way that the likes of Mark Selby and Neil Robertson have so often done in recent seasons and in a way this should be even more pleasing to him.

For Ronnie meanwhile it has been a strange week, during which it has felt at times that he has been there for the taking in some of his matches, but to have reached another final and won £35,000 is not the worst result and it will be interesting to see whether he now makes the trip to Beijing for the China Open in a week or so ahead of the World Championship.

There were times this week when he did not look to be comfortable, for example asking some of the photographers to leave at the start of this evening’s session, or during his exchange of words with referee Marcel Eckardt earlier in the week and whether this played a part in the outcome only he will know.

It is perhaps easy to forget given all of his achievements and in particular just how brilliant he has been for much of the past two or three seasons, but like any other player Ronnie has ups and downs with his form and will no doubt be back sooner rather than later.

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Looking back generally, the event overall has been another real success, with good crowds and terrific coverage by ITV4 who did not miss a ball on the main table and showed as much as they could from table two earlier in the week.

Much has been said before about the excellent coverage on ITV4 by the increasingly regular team of Jill Douglas, Neal Foulds, Alan McManus and Clive Everton, but the balance between knowledge of both the game and of some of the wider issues such as rankings, other tournaments and of the players involved was just right. Thanks also to Neal and Alan for giving a few shout outs to me and this website, which is both surreal and much appreciated all at the same time.

Next up, the Players Championship Grand Finals as the ranking action resumes and the race for Crucible places becomes a little bit clearer…