Is Judd Trump overrated?

Judd Trump won the 2011 UK Championship in a 10-8 defeat of Mark Allen

Following Judd Trump's surprising exit at the International Championship Qualifying stages last week, I've decided to analyse a few numbers from the career of the Englishman who's been UK Champion and World Number One before.

If anyone was watching the Snooker on the Saturday evening for the first time. they should think Judd Trump is a World Champion, when he's in action there's a lot of buzz around and he always enters every event as a big favourite. He might be the second favourite player by the fans behind Ronnie O`Sullivan and even his qualifier match wasn't on TV, his surprising 0-6 defeat against World Number 120 Michael Wild promoted a big buzz on Web media.
But if we think about the biggest tournaments in the Snooker calendar, the Triple Crown Events on BBC, despite Judd Trump is a regular face in the later stages he doesn't win any since 2011 - when he won his first and only so far, at the UK Championship -, and by the end of this year's UK Championship his Triple Crown title absence will complete 4 years. I don't think he's in fact overrated, I just think he's underachieved for these 4 past years and I can't remember anyone who won just one Triple Crown event on his career and got as much credits as Judd Trump.
Obviously outside the "Big Three" Judd has done very well apart from a poor 2013/14 season; In 2012 he won so many titles and reached to so many finals, becoming Number One in the World at the end of that year, but never had the same success playing on the BBC events. He reached to 3 Triple Crown Event Finals, and 2 of them in 2011; Since then he got to the Semi-Finals in the World Snooker Championship twice, losing to the eventual Champion in both occasions, and lost to Ronnie O`Sullivan in the decider on his most recent Triple Crown Final, the UK Championship last December. However Judd Trump has a collection of disappointing results in the Triple Crown Events, as since 2012 he's just won one match at The Masters and most notably lost to Mark Joyce in the 1st Round of the UK Championship 2012 as reigning defending Champion.

Nothing could explain a whitewash suffered in the Qualifying round of the tournament you won 3 years ago and took you to the Top of the Rankings (all credit to Michael WIld anyway), but in my opinion Judd Trump misses a little bit on motivation, and he doesn't understand that he "just" won one Triple Crown Event on his life so far, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's few and I think it's incredible, but sometimes the way fans and other players threat him it looks like he's one of the greatest ever. I'm not here to talk about the off-table from players, but Judd Trump had probably what will keep till he retires as his worst ever season in 2013/14 and at that time he did not look up to Snooker, I follow him on Twitter and he looked to be only interested in late nights and fast cars but as I've said it's not up to me talking about his off-table, but his season was poor anyway.

Judd Trump is aged 26, has won 12 titles in all including the UK Championship, made nearly 400 Century Breaks including two 147's and has earn nearly £2 million. Impressive numbers for someone so young that could've won much more. Obviously Trump won't become a Crucible king or something like it, but it's always nice to watch him and enjoy his unique style so I hope he does well in further events and I expect him to be winning Triple Crown Events soon.


All the other big names made their way through Daqing to play the International Championship later this month (see qualifiers result), but Ronnie O`Sullivan, who said before he expected to be playing the International Championship, missed the event. However he didn't stop to entertain the crowd as in a Legends Exhibition he broke the magical 147 Maximum Break in a match against Jimmy White, watch it here.
The 5-Times World Champion said he haven't yet started his 2015/16 season because he doesn't feel ready for it and he wants to make himself justice. The Rocket said he's not sure if he'll be playing the UK Championship in December but you never know what he's gonna do, and I truly believe he could be playing the Champion of Champions even before that, as he's the only previous winner of that event which was inaugurated in 2013 and is already one of Snooker's most prestigious tournament. Follow our Facebook page to know if Ronnie O`Sullivan will be playing and where, and any other news related to Snooker!