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Judd Trump is the 2020 Northern Ireland Open Champion

26 November 2020 One Comment

Judd Trump won the Northern Ireland Open for the third time in a row, beating Ronnie O’Sullivan by 9-7 on all three occasions. This brings Judd’s tally of ranking titles to 19, one better than Neil Robertson and Mark Selby.

This is the report by WST (excerpts):

World number one Judd Trump beat World Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan 9-7 to win the Matchroom.Live Northern Ireland Open for a third successive year.

Victory for Trump sees him become the first player to win a specific ranking title three years in a row, since Stephen Hendry completed the feat at the 1996 UK Championship. It’s the 19th ranking title of 31-year-old Trump’s career and he has now won 11 of his last 12 ranking finals. O’Sullivan remains on a record-breaking 37 career ranking titles.

Trump’s achievement is all the more remarkable, given the last three finals in this event have all seen him beat O’Sullivan by a 9-7 scoreline. It’s the first time the same two players have contested a specific ranking final in three consecutive years, since Hendry and Jimmy White at the 1994 World Championship.

Trump now edges ahead of O’Sullivan in their head-to-head standings, leading 12-11. He’s also been the stronger of the two players in finals against each other, leading 7-3 in title matches.

The Ace in the Pack leaves with the £70,000 top prize, as well as £5,000 for the high break after he made his fifth career 147 earlier in the week against Gao Yang. It is two Home Nations titles out of two this season for Trump, who beat Neil Robertson 9-8 in the English Open final last month.

“I’m delighted. It was a tough game. I felt confident at 8-5. I felt like I was going to get chances and that didn’t happen. I played a couple of bad safeties, he forced me into a couple of errors and before I knew it the score was 8-7 and looking like 8-8.” said Bristol’s Trump “I was wondering if I was even going to get a chance to win the match. I made a brilliant clearance, it was up there with one of the best clearances I’ve made.

“I can’t remember anyone else in the history of the game even getting close to my record in finals against Ronnie. To have a winning record of 7-3 now is absolutely incredible. He is probably the best player that’s ever lived and I’ve got a record like that against him.

“The World Championship is the biggest tournament in our sport and an amazing achievement, but it is one tournament over a whole season. I won six events last year, none of them the World Championship, every tournament for me is the same. Although the World Championship is a little bit more difficult. I still put myself up there as the one to beat. It just shows in my level of consistency and how far in front I am in the rankings, to keep doing it again and again. It is nice to have that matchup, that he is the World Champion and I’m the world number one.”

Ding and Ali Carter reached the QFs. Ding was beaten 5-2 by Ronnie O’Sullivan who, of course, made it to the final. Ali lost to Kurt Maflin
Luca Brecel lost to Judd, by 4-3 in the last 32. Neil Robertson went out to Ben Woollaston (4-2) and Jack Lisowski lost to Ashley Carty in the first round (4-1)

All detailed results are on snooker.org

One Comment »

  • Om Outreach said:

    Trump becomes the first player to win a specific ranking title three years in a row.
    Victory for Trump

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