by elliott west
I thought I would move away from the usual match report today and concentrate on the shock of the day.
Prior to the start of the UK Championship Judd Trump would have been the firm favourite to win this tournament based on his season form. However, today Judd was a shadow of his former self, getting lost in doubting Thomas mode. His opponent Nigel Bond has long been a fantastic player, having been on the tour almost as long as I have been watching snooker, 1989 to be precise. A former British Open winner in 1996 when he beat John Higgins 10-9, Bond has also won the Snooker Shootout in 2011 and the World Seniors Championship in 2012. Many had thought that at 54 that Nigel was going to retire from the sport, including himself when he nearly fell off the tour.
Thankfully Nigel took a leaf out of Ronnie O’Sullivan’s book and decided to pick and choose which main tour tournaments he would play in. The rest of the time he spends coaching other players. Perhaps this was the key to his success today. After several close matches to get to this stage Bond faced the toughest opponent that he could be drawn against, in the form of Judd Trump.
I spent my time watching this match live and in the player’s lounge in York. I honestly thought that Judd would walk away with this match but as it progressed, I remembered how good a player Nigel Bond actually is. It is true to say from Nigel’s calibre that he should have won more but having played a major part of his career in the shadows of Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry, one could understand how he wasn’t able to get over the line but fair to say that he came oh so close!
On the day you could see Nigel grow and grow, to a point where he was relaxed and his cue arm was free flowing. Dividing his game between attacking snooker and precise safety play, Bond broke down Judd’s game to a point where Judd couldn’t pot a ball for thirty minutes and he started to drown in his negative thoughts. Judd pulled more grimace like faces in this match than were ever produced in a series of Spitting Image! Rather than sticking to his tight game between accuracy and safety he produced both but at a poor level. Had it been produced at a higher standard Judd would have won this match 6-1 or possibly 6-2. However playing snooker at the other end of the scale only leads to one thing… defeat. Nigel Bond sensed that and took his chances when they were given to him and built up frame winning breaks out of them.
The winning frame was very hard to watch as anymore who was watching this would have been happy if this underdog could achieve a momentous win. This was to be the case as on the day, the tide turned in Nigel’s direction and he managed to navigate through a very scrappy last frame to a 6-3 victory. Nigel knew that he had nothing to lose whereas his opponent had everything to lose and with this mindset Bond was able to plant the seeds of doubt into Judd’s head. Perhaps the burnout factor had finally reached Judd and the wheels of victory have momentarily come off the Juddernaut.
What is clear is that this match loss will have hurt Judd and deprived him of getting all the Triple Crown events in one season. Nigel has proved once again that longevity no longer prevents victory in snooker. Bond may or may not win his next match but he has reignited a lot of the form that he once had when he was a top sixteen player between 1992 and 1999, peaking at number five in the 1996/7 season. Don’t forget he also reached the final of the 1995 World Championship where he lost, 9-18 to Stephen Hendry.
In fact when I was going to my hotel room after the match, Judd was leaving his room with his bags packed ready to check out. Trump will be back to take another bite of the cake in the Scottish Open that follows the UK Championship.
But for now… Bravo Nigel!
