Judd Trump had won the World Open in 2019 – the last time the event was played before the Covid crisis – and, today, he successfully defended the title, beating Ding Junhui by 10-4 in a disappointingly one-sided final1. He has now 28 ranking titles to his name, same as Steve Davis2
Judd Trump won his 28th ranking title – matching the career tally of Steve Davis – with a 10-4 victory over Ding Junhui in the final of the Huading Nylon World Open in Yushan, China.
Home favourite Ding was outplayed as Trump made two centuries and five more breaks over 50 as he cruised to a fifth ranking title of the season, having previously won the BetVictor English Open, Wuhan Open, BetVictor Northern Ireland Open and BetVictor German Masters. It’s the third time within five years that he has won five (or more) ranking titles in a single campaign, having landed a record six in 2019/20 and five the following season. The only other players to achieve that feat are Hendry (five in 1990/91), Ding (five in 2013/14), Mark Selby (five in 2016/17) and O’Sullivan (five in 2017/18).
Trump and O’Sullivan have been the dominant forces of the 2023/24 season, with five titles apiece (three of O’Sullivan’s have been at invitation events), and the Player of the Year debate could be settled at the Crucible.
The £170,000 top prize brings Trump’s total earnings for 2023/24 to £1,061,000, the third time in his career that he has reached seven figures for the season. O’Sullivan is ahead of him with £1,155,500, already a record, with the lucrative Johnstone’s Paint Tour Championship and Cazoo World Championship still to come. It’s the first time that two players have earned over £1 million in a single season.
Impressively, all of Trump’s five titles this term have come in events with 128-player flat draws, meaning he has had to win seven matches in each of them. Relentlessly determined with strong emphasis on preparation, practice and consistency, world number two Trump shares many qualities with Hendry and Davis, who dominated in past decades. Winning – even when he is not at his best – has become a habit. And his scoring is prolific, with 76 centuries this season; 100 tons for the campaign still a possibility.
Ding missed out on a first ranking title since the 2019 UK Championship, and has now lost both of his finals this season, having finished runner-up to O’Sullivan in York in December. The 36-year-old enjoyed an epic 6-5 win over Neil Robertson in the semi-finals but, with so much expectation from his home crowd, could not replicate that success today. The £73,000 second prize lifts him from ninth to seventh in the official rankings, and he is up to fourth on the one-year list, which means he goes straight into the quarter-finals of the Johnstone’s Paint Tour Championship in Manchester.
Breaks of 88, 59, 79 and 78 helped Trump build a 7-2 lead in the opening session. When they returned, the Bristol cueman quickly stretched his advantage with a run of 130. Ding pulled one back with an 84 only for Trump to edge 9-3 ahead with a 106, his eighth century of the tournament. Ding won the 13th to force a mid-session interval.
On a run of 58 in the 14th, Trump missed a tricky thin cut on a red to a top corner. The frame came down to a safety battle on the last red, and Ding missed a chance from distance, handing his opponent the opportunity to clear to the brown to retain the title, having won this event when it was last staged in 2019.
“Ding had been playing really well this week so I thought it was going to be tough,” said 2019 World Champion Trump. “I managed to dig in during the afternoon and get a good lead, then played my best stuff of the tournament tonight. I didn’t want to give Ding the chance to start winning frames and let the crowd get behind him When most of the crowd is with your opponent, you have to use that to motivate yourself.
“As I have got older I have learned not to punish myself when I miss easy balls. I see other players doing that. You are not trying to miss, so there’s no point punishing yourself, you have to forget about it, go back to your chair and wait for your next chance. So much of snooker is in the head, if you can be in the right space mentally then you have a big advantage. I am a lot more consistent in that respect these days.
“It has been great to get back to China this season, I was excited to get back here. The crowds have been massive this week, snooker is growing and the fans here are very young. It’s really promising for our sport.
“I can relax and enjoy the rest of the season, it has been a dream season for me. I’m looking forward to the two events in Manchester coming up, to be playing in the centre of a major city will feel special.”
TRUMP’S WINNING MOMENTS
Congratulations Judd Trump
Images shared on Weibo by WST
In the coming days there will be no live professional snooker and I will look at what happened last week on the amateur scene, including in “main tour qualifying route” events.
Judd himself played really well but, unfortunately, Ding was far from his best ↩︎
Although Steve won the UK Championship before it became ranking so those comparisons are to be taken with some caution ↩︎
6 thoughts on “2024 World Open – Judd Trump is the Champion”
A very disappointing tournament in many respects.
I disagree. It was a well organised event, and all the players’ feedback I found on social media were extremely positive. Lewis who attended was full of praise as well. Ronnie lost narrowly to Vafaei in the last 16. OK, he should probably have won but, frankly, he didn’t look overly disappointed and his attitude was good. Judd Trump won the title. He was the better player today and deserved it. You don’t like him, I get that. But it seems to me that you absolutely want to hold a grudge against him for things that happened a long time ago. I didn’t like the young Judd. He was far too arrogant. But he has changed and matured. His game is a lot more measured too. TBH, I’m not sure you would have liked the very young Ronnie either. Think about the incident with Hendry in 1996 f.i. We all change over time, I’m sure that you aren’t the person you were 10 years ago. Life changes all of us. Judd has changed and has become a better person, and a better, more complete player too. I don’t want him to beat Ronnie’s records, but as a sportsperson, he will of course try to do just that, as he should. Will he succeed? He will probably take some, yes. The number of career centuries for instance, or the number of ranking titles … if only because there are much more events now than when Ronnie was in his prime. Between 2000 and 2010 there were 5 or 6 ranking events all season. But I very strongly doubt that Judd will overcome Ronnie’s record in the “Majors”, the UK Championship, the Masters, the World Championship …
Oh, I didn’t just mean that. I don’t hold a grudge, I know Trump matured and improved his ways, but he is just one of those people who make me feel like nails on a blackboard. There are a few people like this from all walks of life, for example I could not stand watching George W. Bush speak. Or Tom Hanks in roles of heart-throbbing tough guys. :) I’m not that disappointed by Ronnie’s loss, because I did not really find him convincing in the earlier rounds or even think it was that important to win this tournament, although of course the manner he lost (that black in the decider) was on its own disappointing. And I’m sure it was a well organized event, although during yesterday’s semi the audience was a little more rowdy than ideal. It must have affected Neil, but even if he just lost to a better player at the moment, it is disappointing that he will have to qualify for the Worlds and potentially be drawn against players I care about. On top of that after beating him yesterday Ding did not put up much of a performance today. I know after the season Robertson had it may not be the “right” thing to expect him to win and in a way rectify everything, but he was still so close. Abd yes, there was hope he could make the Tour instead of Higgins, so that was also a disappointment, even if the hope was feeble.
Of course I will hate if Trump gets more raking titles then Ronnie, so obviously I’m unhappy when he wins one. But I guess I would be unhappy even without Ronnie in the picture. As to Ronnie, he can drive me crazy with some things he says these days. 🙂 But still.
Yes, it’s time we had a more objective way of measuring success. Counting ‘ranking tournaments’ just doesn’t have credibility. The silliest one I’ve heard recently is that Ray Reardon holds the record of consecutive ‘ranking tournament’ wins, with 4.
I have plenty of ideas about this and will look into it at some point.
But in general, we take these records just a bit too seriously.
China is a gigantic country and it seems there is a discrepancy in the mentality of the snooker fans from the different regions. Peking and Shanghai crowds seem to be very polity and respectful, whereas at some tournaments they remind me of the panem et circenses crowds of the ancient Rome with their primal screems and so on.
Yes there is some truth in that. But that is also what makes tournaments distinctive: different countries, different regions, different styles of event. Events like the World Championship and the Masters have always had vastly differing atmospheres. Obviously, we don’t want to see a partisan crowd adversely affect the players – the most famous example being the Masters final in 2007. Ticket prices here were quite reasonable.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
A very disappointing tournament in many respects.
I disagree. It was a well organised event, and all the players’ feedback I found on social media were extremely positive. Lewis who attended was full of praise as well. Ronnie lost narrowly to Vafaei in the last 16. OK, he should probably have won but, frankly, he didn’t look overly disappointed and his attitude was good. Judd Trump won the title. He was the better player today and deserved it. You don’t like him, I get that. But it seems to me that you absolutely want to hold a grudge against him for things that happened a long time ago. I didn’t like the young Judd. He was far too arrogant. But he has changed and matured. His game is a lot more measured too. TBH, I’m not sure you would have liked the very young Ronnie either. Think about the incident with Hendry in 1996 f.i. We all change over time, I’m sure that you aren’t the person you were 10 years ago. Life changes all of us. Judd has changed and has become a better person, and a better, more complete player too. I don’t want him to beat Ronnie’s records, but as a sportsperson, he will of course try to do just that, as he should. Will he succeed? He will probably take some, yes. The number of career centuries for instance, or the number of ranking titles … if only because there are much more events now than when Ronnie was in his prime. Between 2000 and 2010 there were 5 or 6 ranking events all season. But I very strongly doubt that Judd will overcome Ronnie’s record in the “Majors”, the UK Championship, the Masters, the World Championship …
Oh, I didn’t just mean that. I don’t hold a grudge, I know Trump matured and improved his ways, but he is just one of those people who make me feel like nails on a blackboard. There are a few people like this from all walks of life, for example I could not stand watching George W. Bush speak. Or Tom Hanks in roles of heart-throbbing tough guys. :) I’m not that disappointed by Ronnie’s loss, because I did not really find him convincing in the earlier rounds or even think it was that important to win this tournament, although of course the manner he lost (that black in the decider) was on its own disappointing. And I’m sure it was a well organized event, although during yesterday’s semi the audience was a little more rowdy than ideal. It must have affected Neil, but even if he just lost to a better player at the moment, it is disappointing that he will have to qualify for the Worlds and potentially be drawn against players I care about. On top of that after beating him yesterday Ding did not put up much of a performance today. I know after the season Robertson had it may not be the “right” thing to expect him to win and in a way rectify everything, but he was still so close. Abd yes, there was hope he could make the Tour instead of Higgins, so that was also a disappointment, even if the hope was feeble.
Of course I will hate if Trump gets more raking titles then Ronnie, so obviously I’m unhappy when he wins one. But I guess I would be unhappy even without Ronnie in the picture. As to Ronnie, he can drive me crazy with some things he says these days. 🙂 But still.
Yes, it’s time we had a more objective way of measuring success. Counting ‘ranking tournaments’ just doesn’t have credibility. The silliest one I’ve heard recently is that Ray Reardon holds the record of consecutive ‘ranking tournament’ wins, with 4.
I have plenty of ideas about this and will look into it at some point.
But in general, we take these records just a bit too seriously.
China is a gigantic country and it seems there is a discrepancy in the mentality of the snooker fans from the different regions. Peking and Shanghai crowds seem to be very polity and respectful, whereas at some tournaments they remind me of the panem et circenses crowds of the ancient Rome with their primal screems and so on.
Yes there is some truth in that. But that is also what makes tournaments distinctive: different countries, different regions, different styles of event. Events like the World Championship and the Masters have always had vastly differing atmospheres. Obviously, we don’t want to see a partisan crowd adversely affect the players – the most famous example being the Masters final in 2007. Ticket prices here were quite reasonable.