It feels as if we evaluate Judd Trump at the end of every season. After all, it’s part of a package for being world No. 1. I’ve written about this before. Indeed, a lot of people have Judd Trump in their own “ten greatest players” lists. Even Barry Hearn rated the Juddernaut as the sixth greatest player in snooker history in 2020. Most recently, WST inducted Trump into the Snooker Hall of Fame in May 2021. This shows how highly-rated Judd is!
Everyone has an opinion on whether he is one of the snooker ‘greats’ or not at the moment. But almost everyone agrees that Judd Trump’s achievements aren’t close to the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams. There is the highest level of greatness in snooker where other players, such as Stephen Hendry, Steve Davis and John Higgins, reside. Time is on Judd’s side, but it doesn’t stop people from concluding what he is and where he should be.
Judd’s Achievements Before His Domination
Trump was groomed for snooker stardom from such a young age. He won multiple titles during his junior career, including becoming the youngest player to make a competitive maximum at just 14 years old. Though he joined the professional tour in 2005, it took him six years to make his breakthrough. In 2011, he won his first ranking title, became the World Championship finalist and won the UK Championship in the same year.
Judd had a very decent career after 2011, winning a ranking title after almost every season. His victories during that time included winning the International Championship, Players Championship and winning the European Masters two years in a row. But people expected more. He lost nine ranking finals then compared to eight title victories by the end of 2017, at one point losing three finals in a row. Some doubts started to creep in…
The turning point for Judd was winning the 2018 Northern Ireland Open, beating O’Sullivan 9-7 in the final. Judd ended his trophy drought, having not won a ranking title for 13 months. That was when the floodgates opened for The Ace in the Pack.
He won two more ranking tournaments that season and beat O’Sullivan again 10-4 in the final to win the Masters for the first time in his career. His greatest feat that season was no doubt winning the 2019 World Snooker Championship. He beat Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Ding Junhui, Stephen Maguire and Gary Wilson to reach the final. Trump smashed Higgins 18-9 and the final that had set the record for the most century breaks in a single match. Davis described Trump’s performance as “the controlled annihilation of a great player.”
Title After Title After Title
Trump dominated the circuit after he won the World Championship. He won 11 titles in the last two seasons, beating the record of most ranking tournament victories in a single season with 6. Judd beat Ronnie O’Sullivan in three Northern Ireland Open finals in a row between 2018-2020. Perhaps his most impressive feat was winning the World Grand Prix just a couple of weeks after his disheartening defeat in the decider of the 2020 UK Championship.
It’s not just been winning trophies, it is how he’s been doing it too. A Eurosport article asserted Judd’s recent superiority on the circuit. He won the most finals, reached the most finals, won the most frames, scored the most centuries and +50 breaks within the 2020/21 season.
He is now 6th in the table of most ranking event victories with 22 in his career. Most importantly, he is one of 11 players to win the Triple Crown. Judd has held his No.1 spot for a while now. He became the second player to make the century of centuries in a single season. Lastly, he is currently the third-highest century scorer ever, slamming 808 by the end of the 2020/2021 season.
So far, Trump is having a phenomenal career. But has he STILL done enough?
Many say that Trump needs to achieve more to be considered a snooker legend alongside O’Sullivan, Williams, etc. Others are starting to doubt whether he will retire as a ‘great’ at all. Let’s go through the reasons why he hasn’t quite reached those high expectations yet and what he needs to do to reach them.
Has Trump Under-Achieved?
That is a good question.
The amount of success Judd had in such a short space of time during 2011 comes with a bountiful of hype. Everyone expected him to take the game by storm after his amazing 2011 World Championship run and his brand of ‘naughty snooker’. Though Judd won a few titles along the way, his success was less than people expected. Even during his domination over the last two or three years, many want and expect more from him. Trump is currently 31 years of age and some argue that Hendry and O’Sullivan succeeded more at a younger age than him now.
Many other players would be considered a success if they achieved as much as Judd currently has. But Judd is held to a much higher standard because of his reputation as a junior and how he broke into the scene. Fans believe Trump should’ve dominated the game earlier than he has. They also believe he needs to lift an incredible number of trophies to match his amazing talent.
Huge Focus on Triple Crown Victories
The Triple Crown has always acted as a yardstick for greatness in snooker, regardless of era. They are the three most important events. This is especially the case for the World Championships, the longest and most gruelling gauntlet of them all. Below is the table of all the Triple Crown winners and Triple Crown events they won.
| Name | UK Championship | Masters | World Championship | Total |
| Ronnie O’Sullivan | 7 | 7 | 6 | 20 |
| Stephen Hendry | 5 | 6 | 7 | 18 |
| Steve Davis | 6 | 3 | 6 | 15 |
| John Higgins | 3 | 2 | 4 | 9 |
| Mark Selby | 2 | 3 | 4 | 9 |
| Mark Williams | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
| Alex Higgins | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| Neil Robertson | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Judd Trump | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Shaun Murphy | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Terry Griffiths | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Trump’s record in these events is underwhelming compared to the others. Excluding his wildcard appearance, Trump has made one Masters final in nine appearances. He’s only reached the one-table setup at the Crucible four times. He didn’t win the deciders in two UK Championship finals. Despite being in consistently good form over the last two seasons, he only made two quarter-final appearances in the World Championships. I completely agree that Trump needs to win Triple Crown events to be associated alongside the legends of the game.
However, I sometimes feel the focus on the Triple Crown unfairly degrades his other ranking tournament victories. I’ve read people refer to such events as ‘casual’, ‘minor’ or ‘run-of-the-mill’. He won prestigious tournaments such as the China Open, International Championship and Players Championship. Winning the Northern Ireland Open three times in a row is no easy feat either. Those events aren’t meaningless, and Judd deserves credit for beating top players to win these events at least. Besides, no player would ever be No. 1 without winning those tournaments!
Does Judd need to dominate the sport for longer?
Ronnie O’Sullivan gave his opinion on whether Judd Trump is a ‘great’ in 2019. He disagreed, reasoning that “Judd is a fantastic player and a great talent but the true test is doing it over 10-15 years.” This is a true test of anyone who wants to be a legend of any game.
Steve Davis dominated the game during the 1980s, winning six World titles in nine years. Stephen Hendry dominated the sport in the 1990s, being No. 1 for eight years straight. Alex Higgins won a trophy every season for more than a decade. The Class of ’92’s successes (O’Sullivan, Higgins, Williams) spans three decades. O’Sullivan had to constantly adapt since 1992 to stay competitive. O’Sullivan had won a Triple Crown event for nine straight seasons and the 2020/2021 season happened to be the first season in O’Sullivan’s career where he failed to win a professional trophy.
Then we come to Mark Selby. Selby’s style of play on the snooker table has divided opinion, but fans should give respect to what he achieved. He was ranked world number one for over four years. In 2021, he lifted his 4th World Championship title within the past eight years. It’s has been largely accepted that Selby has now taken his place among the greats because of all this.
Just winning five or six rankings titles in a season shouldn’t define a career. Judd Trump is going in the right direction by dominating for two-and-a-half years. But the legends have dominated much longer than that.
What next?
Judd Trump has clearly achieved a lot. He went past the “overrated” label because he won the Triple Crown. He has the talent to be the best-ever at the end of his career.
But his recent bursts of trophies have led people to either anoint him as an all-time great or disregard him completely. Judd’s focus should be on the Triple Crowns. Would that mean he should choose wisely which tournaments to partake in? What is certain is that Judd is in the right direction and I’m looking forward to seeing where that leads us.
Whether he’s a “great” or not, it feels great, just watching him play!
Interesting read, though I don’t care about this GOAT stuff. Perhaps he chooses his tournaments ‘carefully’, given the fact that he is on No 8 on the overall Prize Money list?! But I would love to learn why he could have stopped his fear of winning.