World No.1 Judd Trump may have had an inadvertent hand in derailing Ronnie O’Sullivan at the UK Championship. The eight-time champion was knocked out of the running at the York Barbican on Saturday following a 6-4 defeat by Barry Hawkins.
‘The Rocket’ sailed into a 4-2 lead early on and looked like good value to reach the second round of the tournament. That was until Hawkins stormed his way back into contention and won the final four frames of the match.
And the superstitious among us may feel Trump had something to do with the result after recently singing O’Sullivan’s praises. ‘The Ace in the Pack’ – who faces Neil Robertson in his UK Championship opener on Tuesday – recently called on the rest of the snooker family to pull their weight and not leave it up to O’Sullivan to draw in fans.
“It’s very narrow-minded to expect a sell-out of a thousand people in a new country,” Trump said in an exclusive interview for Reach’s UK Championship magazine. “I saw in the previous tournament in Saudi Arabia, people started coming in at the end of the tournament. I think some of the blame [for low crowds] has to do with the players. They’re not exciting enough, including myself.
“Everyone turned out for Ronnie. The crowds are there but it’s up to the players to play more attacking, free-flowing, exciting snooker. It’s down to us to make the sport more enjoyable.”
Humble as that praise might have been, Trump’s comments heralded an unfortunate response from O’Sullivan. The seven-time world champion lauded the efforts of Hawkins to turn the result around, saying it felt like he “just sat in [his] chair a lot.”
When asked if he was disappointed with the result, Ronnie replied: “A little bit! Because I feel like I’ve been playing okay in practice for a change. Yeah, a little bit disappointed. Practice and match form are completely different, you know? So just not taking [that practice form] out there at the moment.”
Saturday’s UK Championship marked the second straight tournament in which O’Sullivan has exited the first round. Xiao Guodong ousted the Englishman from the Champion of Champions running at the first hurdle before going on to finish as runner-up in Bolton.
As it happens, Trump only made it to the second round of that tournament before he was beaten by none other than Robertson. And he’ll have a swift chance at redemption when the duo face off against on Tuesday.
