Trump unfazed by pressure of final

Judd Trump is confident he will be able to handle the pressure of being the favourite in tomorrow’s williamhill.com UK Championship final.

The 22-year-old from Bristol heads into his third major final of the year after beating Neil Robertson 9-7 last night at the Barbican Centre in York, having previously won the China Open and finished runner-up to John Higgins at the World Championship.

He already has earnings of £250,000 for the year, which could be swelled by a £100,000 top prize.

Trump will face either England’s surprise semi-finalist Ricky Walden or Mark Allen, the Northern Irishman who has attracted attention this week mainly for his fierce criticism of World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn.

Trump is delighted to have a day off today while Walden and Allen thrash out a best-of-17-frames tussle over afternoon and evening sessions.

If the clash between Walden and Allen follows a pattern similar to the exacting encounter between Trump and Robertson, the victor will be exhausted by tonight.

The scheduling appears to play into the hands of Trump, who said: “I’ll just relax and take it easy and watch the match and watch them get stressed out and hopefully tire themselves out.”

Asked how he would cope with being the firm favourite for the title, Trump said: “I don’t really take any notice of it. Hopefully losing in the World Championship final stood me in good stead and I can learn from that and be patient in the final.”

Trump might be relieved that his opponent tomorrow is not of the calibre of Higgins, the only player who found a way to beat the young Englishman in Sheffield this year.

Allen stands 14th in the world rankings and Walden is 22nd, and while the past performances of both men have hinted at better things to come in their careers, neither has the track record to indicate they should outwit Trump.

Not that Trump is taking anything for granted, acknowledging the manner of his victory over Australian Robertson, who appeared to deliberately slow down play in the evening session as a stifling tactic, made for a tense evening.

Trump said: “I felt a lot more under pressure than I have in any match so far, and probably any I played at the World Championship. This is a big tournament for me and it would be nice to end this year on a high and win this tournament.

“We were both really under pressure and we both knew there was a big chance if we got to the final.”

Trump opened a 7-5 lead in the evening session but was pegged back to 7-7.

Both players had bad misses throughout the evening, and a match which began with heavy scoring ended with Trump relieved to be able to string together a break of 27 to get over the winning line.

Robertson said: “It’s really disappointing because that’s probably a match where I can say I really threw it away.”

Trump said: “I think Neil tried to slow it down and make things awkward for me. The game went really slow and nothing happened for about 20 minutes and I was just sitting there falling asleep.”