Neal Foulds snooker column: Judd Trump back on top of the world amid player dispute with World Snooker Tour

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m thriving on the workload, but Judd Trump is a man who most certainly is, and how good it was to see him back to his dominant, thrilling best when winning back-to-back tournaments at the English Open and Wuhan Open in the last two weeks.

I will offer my take on the recent dispute between some of the sport's top players and World Snooker Tour, and the players’ frustrations at the current schedule, but there is no question that Trump has done brilliantly to win two events played in different continents in the space of as many weeks.

I’ve always said that snooker is played between the ears and Trump is evidence of that. Even when winning the Masters back in January, he didn’t appear to have complete trust in his game, and I think the tough match he lost in the final of the World Grand Prix almost immediately afterwards left its mark. It knocked his confidence.

Trump back on song after gamble pays off

From there, Trump always seemed to be searching for some consistency, and by the time the World Championship came around, nobody was tipping him, nor were we that surprised when he lost in the first round. This was, let’s not forget, a man who had dominated the sport just a couple of seasons earlier.

It’s great to see him back playing well, defying those who wondered whether he would ever again reach those great heights, and he really deserves it. He’s worked so hard to get back to the top and that’s where he is. Trump is the man once again.

It was far from plain sailing at times, though, and actually, I think Trump will look back on the gamble he took after the afternoon session of his English Open final with Zhang Anda, when behind in the match, and think that was when things turned around for him.

He took a big gamble there, opting to remove his tip and have another fitted with barely any time between sessions, and when he slipped further behind — four frames, in fact — it looked as if his gamble hadn’t paid off. Worse still, with the Wuhan Open starting the very next day, his decision could have had serious consequences for the following event.

But from nowhere he found something, and as any snooker player will tell you, the more you play with a new tip, the better it feels. Before long Trump had turned the match on its head and produced some brilliant stuff to win six frames in a row and bring up ranking title number 24.

Up until that point, he still looked to be fighting. But it was a completely different story in Wuhan and after having to play and win two matches on the same day upon his arrival in China, there was a feeling of inevitability as he roared to another title success. He was sensational all week, and as hard as Ali Carter tried in the final, Trump was too strong and too good. All credit to him.

It just goes to show that success breeds success, and that confidence is everything in this game. I know Trump spoke a few weeks ago about the possibility of skipping the Northern Ireland Open to prepare for some big tournaments before Christmas, but he's always respected these events and I’d like to think he’ll try and strike while the iron is hot.

And the Northern Ireland Open has certainly been kind to him, having won it three years in a row between 2018 and 2020.

The tournament needs a headline act given how many big names have already decided not to enter. That’s a great shame, but fingers crossed Trump doesn’t join that list — the people of Northern Ireland are big snooker fans and I know they’d love to see him in Belfast again.

Big names lock horns with WST

The dispute I mentioned at the top of the column between WST and the players has clearly hurt the Northern Ireland Open, Trump or no Trump, with the likes of Mark Selby and world champion Luca Brecel instead opting to play in a valuable exhibition in Macau, China.

There has been much said on this subject since, and I can see both sides of the argument.

For the players, they saw an opportunity to stay in China, as opposed to enduring another long flight back to the UK ahead of the important International Championship in early November.

That’s a big event in its own right, with very good prize money, and I think some of the top players felt that staying in China would have given them a better chance to prepare for it. And, of course, the money on offer to play in the exhibition is not short-change, by all accounts, whereas the prize money for Northern Ireland, or the other Home Nations events, hasn’t really increased.

Nevertheless, it put WST in a difficult position. They could argue that it was more than an exhibition, more akin to a rival tournament, one that was going to do harm to the professional tour. They had a point, and for snooker, this felt like our LIV Golf moment. WST have to protect the game and it's long-term prospects, though I do have sympathy with all sides.

In the end, the exhibition has been rearranged for the Christmas period, which will suit WST and probably won’t stop some of the players heading out to China for the money on offer, but it has taken the gloss off next week, and in retrospect, I think there are lessons to be learned in terms of the schedule, which has been pretty hard going for the top players.

Nobody is suggesting that playing snooker is back-breaking stuff, but regularly hopping from one side of the world to the other isn’t easy, and if you want elite sportspeople to keep performing at their best, people will have to accept that those players will start picking and choosing their tournaments to try and peak at the right times.

Maybe something like an Asian Swing is a concept WST will consider going forward, to at least cut down on how many flights you are asking players to make, but the other side of the argument is that it is only a year ago that we were desperate for snooker to return to China and for more tournaments to be back on the calendar. The players have that now.

Higgins suffers more heartache

I’ve talked at great length about Trump and how well he has played in the last two events, but a word, too, on John Higgins, who he beat 6-5 in the semi-finals of the English Open after the veteran Scot had dominated much of that match, leading 5-2 at one stage.

For Higgins, it was another big match that got away, and there have certainly been a few chances he has let slip in the last couple of years. I’m not sure he’s quite recovered from losing the 2022 Tour Championship final to Neil Robertson, having been a single frame from victory when 9-4 in front before eventually losing 10-9.

That was a match and tournament he really should have won, and there have been others, but last week against Trump, I don’t think you can apportion much blame to Higgins. I can’t remember seeing a better comeback than this in my life, and the fact is that from 5-2 down, Trump didn’t miss a beat, producing a quite remarkable display of snooker.

With Zhang Anda awaiting in his first ranking final, Higgins would’ve have felt that beating Trump in the semi-finals would have put him within touching distance of another tournament win. For that reason, I’m sure the defeat will hurt even more.

And before that, he had Ronnie O’Sullivan on the ropes in Shanghai, before again letting another healthy lead slip — O’Sullivan going on to win the title there.

Of the Class of 92, there’s an argument to be made that Higgins is playing as well as any of the famed trio, certainly in terms of consistency, but O’Sullivan hasn’t lost the winning knack, nor, too, Mark Williams, who won the British Open only recently.

The difference for Higgins is that it’s been a long time between drinks now. Winning a big, important match has become something of a monkey on his back. I’m convinced he’s playing well enough to win more tournaments, but he just needs things to fall his way for him to get back to winning ways.

Just as Trump has proven in these last two weeks, success breeds success, and snooker is all about confidence. That’s all Higgins is missing right now, and I’d dearly love for him to right the wrongs of some painful recent high-profile defeats and become a tournament winner once again.