Judd Trump

Judd Trump (born 20 August 1989 ) is an English professional snooker player who is a former world champion and former world number one.

Widely regarded as one of the sport's most talented players, he is currently fifth on the list of all-time ranking event winners with 27 ranking titles.

He has also won four Triple Crown titles.

After a junior career that included winning the English Under-13 and Under-15 titles, and reaching the World Under-21 Championship semi-finals aged 14, Trump turned professional in 2005.

He joined the professional tour in the 2005–06 season, and at the Welsh Open he became the youngest player ever to qualify for the final stages of a ranking tournament.

He also reached the last-48 stage at the China Open, losing 4–5 to Michael Holt, although this was designated the final qualifying round and was actually played in Prestatyn, Wales.

He played the 2005 champion and sixth seed Shaun Murphy in the first round, but lost 6–10 despite having led 6–5.

He defeated James Wattana 10–5 in the final round of qualifying at the 2007 World Championship, to become the third-youngest player ever at the time to reach the main stage of the tournament, after champions Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan, who had both been younger when they made their Crucible debuts.

Trump is one of only five players to make their first appearance at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre at the age of 17, along with Hendry, O'Sullivan, China's Liu Chuang and Belgium's Luca Brecel.

He did not build on this form in the 2007–08 season, only reaching the last 32 of the Welsh Open by beating Joe Swail 5–2 in the first round.

He also missed out on the 2008 World Championship after a 9–10 loss to Swail in the final round of qualifying, despite having led 9–7.

Trump's fortunes changed for the 2008–09 season when he reached the venue stages of the first four events.

At the Grand Prix, he benefited from Graeme Dott's withdrawal before defeating Joe Perry 5–2 in the last 16, despite Perry feeling that he had outplayed Trump, who himself admitted to not having played well.

Then came the biggest win of his career so far, when he defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 5–4 to reach the semi-final, in which he was defeated 4–6 by John Higgins.

After that, Trump beat two-time world champion Mark Williams to qualify for the 2008 Bahrain Championship.

He won a qualifying event in 2008 to gain entry into the 2009 Masters as the only qualifier, but was defeated by Mark Allen in the first round.

At the end of the snooker year, Trump failed again to reach the main stage of the World Championship, losing 8–10 to Stephen Lee in the final qualifying round, having led 6–3.

Lee noted that Trump had not followed the custom of apologising for fluked shots during the match, and concluded "all I've heard about for the last five years in my area is how good he is, and he is good... but he's blown a 6–3 lead today and hopefully that will stick with him for a while yet."

Trump ended the season in the top 32 of the rankings for the first time.

He was coached for a short time by Tony Chappel.

Trump won the 2009 Championship League in the previous season to qualify for the Premier League event later in the year, in which he won four of his six matches, including a 4–2 win over Ronnie O'Sullivan.

He finished second in the League table, but lost 1–5 to O'Sullivan in his semi-final.

The 2009–10 season was less successful for Trump as he failed to progress beyond the last 32 in any of the ranking tournaments.

In January 2010, he joined Romford-based snooker agency Grove Leisure.

He won his maiden ranking title at the 2011 China Open, was runner-up to John Higgins at the 2011 World Snooker Championship, and captured his first Triple Crown title at the 2011 UK Championship.

Trump defeated former world champions Peter Ebdon and Shaun Murphy at the 2011 China Open, to reach his first professional ranking event final.

He then triumphed over last year's Masters champion Mark Selby 10–8 to win his first major title.

He won £60,000 in prize money and provisionally climbed into the top 16 of the world rankings.

By the end of the 2017–18 season, he had won eight ranking titles, but was facing persistent criticism that he was underachieving in the sport, given his talent.

In the 2018–19 season, he completed his Triple Crown by winning both the Masters and World Championship, won two other ranking events, and became the first player to win over £1 million in prize money in a single season.

In the 2019–20 season, he won six ranking events, setting a new record for the most ranking titles in a single season.

Voted the World Snooker Tour's Player of the Year for three consecutive years from 2019 to 2021, he was inducted into the Snooker Hall of Fame in 2021.

He was World Championship runner-up for a second time in 2022 to Ronnie O'Sullivan, and was awarded an MBE in the same year.

He won his second Masters title in 2023, making him the 11th player to win the tournament more than once.

Trump has compiled more than 950 century breaks in professional competition, making him the third player, after O'Sullivan and Higgins, to reach this milestone.

In the 2019–20 season, he became the second player, after Neil Robertson, to achieve 100 century breaks in a single season.

He has made eight maximum breaks in his career.

In 2022, he became the second player, after Shaun Murphy, to compile three maximums in a single calendar year, having made 147s at the 2022 Turkish Masters, the 2022 Champion of Champions and the 2022 Scottish Open.

Trump was English Under-13 and Under-15 champion, and reached the World Under-21 Championship semi-finals at the age of 14.

He added a further five ranking titles during the 2020–21 season.