UK Championship (2011) - Trump sends Robertson Down Under

Judd Trump flies into the grand final

Judd Trump managed to beat the 2010 world champion, Neil Robertson 9-7 in order to reach the final of this year's UK Championship. It was a close battle of cues that saw the players being just one frame away most of the time. However, in the end, the boy from Bristol sent home the Australian player.

With a first session that ended on a balanced 4-4 scoreline it was only normal to see the lads continuing to do so as the second session started.

As usual, the one who put his nose in front was Trump, a break of 56 doing the trick, while Robertson responded with 30 to win the next frame on the black. The Australian player practically exploded when the crazy little dark ball went in, as he chased “her sisters” all over the table to get to her.

But from this point on, the pattern was broken and the players went back to the first part of their first session when Trump got a two frames advantage over his opponent. Breaks of 29, 34 and 73 were putting the 22-year old lad 7-5 ahead as the interval was kicking off. Hard times for Aussie.

So close and yet so far away - Neil Robertson

After the break, Robertson was unlucky to have a tremendous kick as he was reaching a 49, but Fortuna gave him another chance as Judd lost position on 26, the Australian returning to the table to hit a tiny, yet very important, 18 break to pull back a frame.

What followed next was a bit of a nightmare as no more than 25 minutes passed and no ball was being potted. The lads decided to have a re-rack and still after that the game seemed to have frozen. After quite some time, Robbo took his chances to make a great 83 and level the match, 7-7.

Trump took the next frame with a top break of 50 to put his nose in front once more, this time being just one step away from victory and for as much as Robertson tried and tried during the next frame he couldn't force a decider.
Judd used runs of 29 and 27 to win 9-7 and get a well deserved spot in Sunday' final.

Robbo, Trump and Leo Scullion trying to rearrge the reds

At the end of the day we had a brilliant semi-final match played by two brilliant players, but as always only one of them had to prevail and this time it was Trump. 

Robertson might not have managed to take his revenge for when Trump beat him during the 2011 World Championship first round (when the Aussie was defending champion), but he will surely succeed one day. 
Until then, Judd Trump is looking forward to a final that will definitely look great in his snooker CV. What a victory for the Bristol boy!

Saturday, the second semi-final is kicking off. 

1pm
7pm
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