Judd Trump is world number one and won all of snooker’s big titles, but he admits he is struggling under pressure after a nightmare Masters semi-final defeat to John Higgins.
An epic Saturday at Alexandra Palace started with Higgins edging Trump 6-5 to book his place in the final, where he will face Kyren Wilson.
A win for the Wizard of Wishaw did not look likely when he was 5-3 behind and the Ace had a golden chance to win the match.
Trump missed a routine brown when he had the chance to clear up and win 6-3, which Higgins later said he was amazed by.
‘I can’t believe he missed,’ said the 50-year-old. ‘Judd just doesn’t do that when he’s clutch and when he’s got to do it under pressure. He just doesn’t miss like that.’
Trump still only narrowly lost to one of the greatest players ever, but he accepts that he is finding it difficult when the pressure is on.
The 36-year-old has not won a tournament since the 2024 UK Championship and has lost a string of deciders this season, admitting he has a problem to solve.
‘I just need to improve under pressure’
‘It’s difficult. Everyone’s difficult,’ Trump told the BBC. ‘He did well to win but I had my chances so obviously I’m disappointed not to have taken them. I made a couple of really good clearances that probably should have changed the game and I should have got over the line.
‘I just need to improve under pressure a little bit more and then I’ll be able to turn these games around, because that’s a lot of deciding frame losses this season. I put myself in a good position but John is a great player and it’s a good game.’
He added: ‘The brown at 5-3 was awkward, I felt if I screwed back I could go in-off, and I took my eye off it. In the last frame I had a chance but again it was awkward.’
Trump made a similar admission at the UK Championship, where he reached the final before losing to Mark Selby.
‘I’m a bit edgy, same in a lot of tournaments this year, just very edgy. I don’t quite have that belief at the moment,’ he said. ‘I’ve just been a little bit hesitant and looking for trouble a little bit.’
On how to get over the issue, he said: ‘It’s not so much winning a tournament, it’s winning close games.
‘At the moment, any time there’s a bit of danger my body wants to shut down.’
Trump is not imagining the problem as, remarkably, he has not won a single match this season that has gone to a deciding frame.
John Higgins joins the list of players to beat Trump in a decider this campaign, which also features: Gary Wilson, Elliot Slessor, Shaun Murphy, Matthew Stevens, Jack Lisowski and Zhao Xintong.
‘It has to go down as one of my biggest ever wins’
It looked like it might be a short match when Trump went 3-0 up early and had a chance to lead 4-0 at the interval.
Higgins was poor early on but vastly improved as Trump wobbled and won his second decider on the bounce after beating world champion Zhao Xintong 6-5 in the quarter-finals.
‘It was amazing, I can’t believe I am through,’ said Higgins. ‘Judd was in total control of the game at 3-0, I was all at sea and I was devastated because nothing was happening for me. The fourth frame was massive.
‘In recent times I have lost a lot of matches like that which has been really tough to take. I just didn’t give up today, even though I lost two bad frames to go 4-2 and 5-3 down. But I was lucky that Judd missed the brown at 5-3, it looked all over.
‘It has to go down as one of my biggest ever wins because Judd is such a great champion and he had won so many matches against me in the last few years. He probably felt the match was easy, at 3-0 perhaps he took his foot off the pedal, and this game never forgives you. I will enjoy tonight and tomorrow just go out and give it my all.’
Kyren Wilson also survived a deciding frame to beat debutant Wu Yize on Saturday evening, setting up a clash with Higgins in Sunday’s final played over two sessions at 1pm and 7pm.
