Judd reached the final of the first event of the Home Nations Series, the English Open 2016, played in Manchester from October 10 to October 17, 2016, his second final in 8 days. He lost by 9-6 to Liang Wenbo. This defeat put an end to a 14 consecutive wins run. Although Judd was certainly disappointed, he should be able to take a lot of positives from the last 3 weeks: he demonstrated outstanding consistency, remarkable stamina and a very solid all-round game. He is now third in the World ranking list.

Most Judd’s matches in this tournament can be found on youtube.

Here is the final:

Other than for Judd’s excellent run, it was a miserable tournament for the Grove team, with none of the other players getting past the last 32. Neil lost at that stage to Xiao Guodong, by 4-3, despite leading 3-0 at a point and making 2 centuries… The only consolation – if there is one – is that Neil wasn’t alone in his fate: Mark Selby, Shaun Murphy, Ding Junhui, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Allen, Ali Carter, Marco Fu, Kyren Wilson, Stephen Maguire, Anthony McGill … all fell by the wayside at that stage as well, or even earlier.

All detailed results are available on Cuetracker