New Season Brings Trump Back To Earth
Judd Trump was brought back down to earth as the new snooker season got underway at the first Players Tour Championship in Sheffield, suffering a four-frames-to-one defeat at the hands of David Gilbert in his opening match.
The 22-year-old who followed his stunning China Open victory in April by pushing John Higgins hard in their Crucible final last month, never got into the match against the former World Snooker Young Player of Distinction.
Gilbert, who turned 30 last week, has under achieved in his career. The Tamworth-based professional has shown glimpses of what he is capable of but never delivered what many believed he could.
It has been well documented that Trump has ‘enjoyed himself’ since the end of the 2010/11 season which saw him leap into the top ten for the first time.
This was always a potential banana skin for Trump, who must now turn his attention to the first ‘major’ ranking event of the season in Australia next month.
For Gilbert, he will now take on Jamie Cope for a place in the last 32.
Ronnie O’Sullivan, making a rare PTC appearance looked focussed despite losing two frames against former world number five, Mike Hallett. The Rocket eventually came through by four-frames-to-two and will now face Andy Hicks.
Fresh from his wedding party on the weekend, Mark Selby had no problems seeing off Chinese youngster, Anda Zhang 4-1.
Stephen Maguire and Gerard Greene both looked rusty though as they managed to scrape through in final frame deciders against Matthew Day and Aditya Mehta respectively.
