Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
Ding Junhui slumped in his chair in the corner of the rink, hands clasped together on his lap and eyes transfixed on the floor, like a man who’d just been given bad news. The score hardly suggested a crisis, at 3-3 in this Masters quarter-final with Judd Trump in a race to six. But the momentum had swung so violently over the past 15 minutes that it was as if Ding had been punched in the gut, the air sucked out of him, and he just wanted to melt under Alexandra Palace’s bright lights.
A puddle on the floor might have been more effective in interrupting Trump’s flow. The world No 1 won the next three frames without conceding a point, hitting breaks of 125, 62 and 75, racking up 368 points without reply. Trump finished the match with 95 per cent pot success, 91 per cent long pot success and 80 per cent safety success. Ding had only missed a few balls all afternoon, but that was enough for a comprehensive 6-3 defeat.
“I made a few mistakes and I take a lot of punishment,” Ding said. “He played very well today. You can’t make those mistakes against Judd Trump.”
Victory sent Trump through to his seventh semi-final of a season which is blooming into one of the greatest single years by any player. Trump is the favourite here to add another title to wins at the Shanghai Masters, Saudi Arabia Masters and UK Championship, and in reaching the semis he has already set a new record for the most prize money earned in a single season – nearly £1.3m – with four months still to go until the World Championship.
“I’m so privileged to be doing what I’m doing,” Trump said sheepishly when presented with that achievement by interviewer Rob Walker. “Coming out here is the best feeling in the world. I’m thrilled I can play the standard I did today. When you get into a run like that, I’d happily play for the rest of the day.”
There are few better sights in sport right now than Trump at his free-flowing best, cracking balls against the back of pockets with unnecessary brutality, playing with a kind of dangerous joy. Ding had started well and led 3-1 at the interval. Trump spent the break sitting on the sofa, eating a sandwich and playing on his phone, before returning to produce snooker from another planet, rattling off five frames in a row.
Three of his first four pots were ominous: an opening red speared into the left middle with the cue ball pinned against the top cushion; another long red cut thinly into the corner; and a green drilled into the middle pocket with no margin for error. It was not just the execution but the bottle to take them on, knowing a mistake gift-wrapped the fifth frame to an opponent in Ding who is deadly among the balls, and it would have left Trump’s tournament on the brink. But snooker is more aggressive than ever right now and it requires a level of bravado that suits Trump’s natural game.
That virtuoso break ended unluckily on 97 when the white rolled in off playing a deep screw shot, and Trump still trailed 3-2, but he had done enough to change the mood music in the room and the next frame proved key. Ding is brilliant potting regulation balls, moving the white with magnetic precision on to the next, and the next. But when he faces the faintest hindrance – an element of distance, a hampered bridge – his technique seems to crumble. In prime position he missed a simple red to the corner reaching with the rest, and that was the moment he collapsed into his chair looking utterly deflated.
“I just looked away because I thought it was perfect,” Trump said of Ding’s rest shot. “Then I heard the crowd and I thought ‘oh my god, this is the moment now’.”
Trump fed off an atmosphere that is different to anything else on the tour. The crowd are further from the table than in Sheffield or York, and yet somehow feel more involved. At one point, with the frame already won, they booed Trump for failing to take an exhibition route around the table from blue to pink and he laughed. The 2,200 seats have been filled in almost every session so far this year, with record tickets sold for the tournament.
From then on Trump couldn’t be stopped. He will meet one of the past two world champions, Luca Brecel or Kyren Wilson, in the semi-finals and whoever comes through must figure out how to stem the flow. Perhaps the only answer in the modern game is to fight fire with fire.
“It frightens the life out of your opponent when you’re going for your shots, even more so when they’re going in,” Trump said. “I could see Ding’s body language change when it got to 4-3, and it gave me so much confidence. He just looked a little bit more in shock, more worried. If he made a mistake he knew it was going to be frame over. It adds a little bit of tension, sometimes you overthink then and that can be the difference.”
Aged 35, Trump has gone through a few cycles in his career, from young precocious upstart going for every pottable ball, to the more refined tactician who won the world title in 2019, to a complete player who, now, is almost impossible to live with at his best.
“I’m somewhere near my peak, I’m a lot better player than where I was five, 10 years ago,” he said. “It’s the consistency, I have that inner belief over and over again. Even when I go behind 3-1, I believe I can rattle off 10 frames without missing a single ball.”
Having won the UK Championship in November, just quietly there is talk about the single-season triple crown, something achieved by only Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and Mark Williams, even if Trump insists it is not in his mind. “Not at all, there’s so long to go. I’m just loving being in the tournament.” And perhaps for the rest of the field, it’s that joy which should be most worrying of all.
