In a week that had the name Trump trending globally, it was snooker’s Judd Trump that didn’t manage to get past the winning post to claim a victory. The man that stopped him was John Higgins, who at 41 years old, has been freshly crowned the Evergrande snooker China Champion last week.
Defeating Shaun Murphy earlier today and then Judd Trump this evening by 5-3, the Scot is once again on course to contend for a second consecutive snooker title that would be the champion of champions trophy. Although Higgins was helped by mistakes from Trump in their match this evening, he definitely looks more like the complete player which is a long way from where he was six months ago.
The match started very positively for Higgins, quickly racking up a 2-0 lead. From there Judd Trump managed to level things up at 2-2 going to the mid session interval. After the interval, the switch went off on Trump as Higgins took the next 3 frames on the trot to go 5-2 up in this fascinating snooker match. With his back against the wall, Trump started potting again and took the next 2 frames after a Higgins mistake allowed him to clear up and come back to 5-4.
In the next frame Higgins potted a superb red from the break-off from Judd Trump and cleared the snooker table with a fantastic break of 143 to win the match 6-4. With an overall pot success of 96%, the scot is well on his way to contend this tournament.
Trump will no doubt be disappointed to lose, especially after his brilliant performance earlier today against Anthony McGill where Trump potted 3 centuries in the 4 frames he won.
He will now face Ding Junhui in the semi finals. Although Ding scrapped over the line the other night, he is by no means playing his best snooker yet but all that could change after the rest he’s had.
