By Elliott West
Introduction
As Christmas rapidly approaches, all eyes in the snooker world this week are on the start of the UK Championship in York. A tournament that is steeped in history and was first played in Blackpool in 1977 when a young Patsy Fagan defeated Doug Mountjoy 12-9. An era when the tournament was non-ranking and the trophy presented by Joe Davis to Patsy, was donated from his own collection.
Now part of the Triple Crown tournaments, the UK Championship has sadly lost some of its prestige over the years. Considered for many years to be the second biggest prize to the World Championship, it has got slightly lost under the mountain of events that now fill up the snooker calendar. Briefly constrained by the pandemic restrictions, snooker can now resume at the Barbican, York without canned applause, a capacity audience and the wonderful Christmas atmosphere that exists in York at this time of the year, especially the legendary Christmas markets.
Who will Win?
This is probably a million-dollar question because snooker never pans out how you think it will. However, there are a band of usual suspects who could get their hands on this trophy. The favourite will have to be Judd Trump going into this tournament after his blistering performance in the final of the Champion of Champions where he defeated John Higgins 10-4, bringing his total to 16 victories in his last 19 finals. Definitely the man of the moment and a player who will be very hard to beat if he carries on with this tremendous form.
However, there are quite a few contenders circling around Judd in this UK Championship pool. The names that instantly spring to mind are Yan Bingtao, who had a great run in the Champion of Champions, John Higgins who will want to put his curse to bed of losing three consecutive finals to bed, Ronnie O’Sullivan who was had a somewhat flat season but will go flat out to take this title, Mark Selby and of course Neil Robertson who won this title last year after a 10-9 showdown with Judd Trump in the final last year.
It remains to be seen whether anyone else outside this group of players will be able to break through and steal the silverware. I personally don’t envisage there being a Jordan Brown moment but watch out for players like Mark Allen, Stuart Bingham, Mark King, Shaun Murphy, Kyren Wilson and Mark Williams with Aaron Hill and Jackson Page both having potential.
All Eyes on Judd
Judd Trump will be looking to lift his second UK Championship title at the end of this event, the first being in 2011 when he beat Mark Allen 10-8 in the final. A player who had to go through several years of learning every aspect of the game to perfection but now has mastered it. He no longer has just the flair shots but the heavy scoring and most importantly the safety game to boot and is able to run rings around anyone he plays. Sometimes his engine is cold when he starts a match but he is almost always able to fire up in the middle of the match, producing sublime snooker that few players would be able to replicate.
Although we are a long way from the days when a single player dominated the field with the likes of Reardon, Davis and Hendry. Trump comes mighty close and is picking off the titles that O’Sullivan doesn’t appear in or fails to reach the final in. Even when Ronnie does reach a final and he draws Judd, Trump is one of the few players that is fearless of his opponent. He continues to match him in every department, often outscoring him and wrapping O’Sullivan in a safety battle that he detests playing.
Summary
Fans will be relieved to have the UK Championship back in its rightful home, York instead of its temporary one in Milton Keynes. A place that fielded a multitude of tournaments during the Coronavirus outbreak including the German Masters. That said, we are eternally grateful to the powers to be of snooker for putting on so many tournaments during these testing times when many sports had to stop for the duration due to stringent restrictions
The UK Championship can now blossom and take back all those components that have been missing recently, especially the sound of rapturous applause and the swell of a live audience. It has been proven that Snooker can work without them but thankfully we seem to be turning a corner in this episode and are much closer to full normality. As always the UK Championship will shine and this year, slightly brighter than most.
