Players Tour Championship Event 9 (2011) - Trump conquers second PTC title

Judd Trump - PTC 9 champion

After winning PTC Event 2 back in August, Judd Trump returns to the podium to collect his second PTC title, this time by beating Ronnie O'Sullivan 4-3 in Antwerp, Belgium.

It was over three months ago when the year's China Open champion and World Championship runner-up, whitewashed Ding Junhui 4-0 in the final of the PTC Event 2 from Gloucester. Since then, he managed to reach the final stages of the PTCs several times, during PTC Event 7 he even got to the final, but somehow he didn't succeed in cashing the big prize. Until now that is.

Trump started his PTC 9 journey by beating Martin O'Donnell 4-1, Craig Steadman 4-2 and Jimmy White 4-3.
After these three victories he was guaranteed a place in the Last 16. Here, he started by crashing Tom Ford 4-0, took revenge against the man that beat him during this year's World Championship final, John Higgins, by defeating him 4-2 and hammered Martin Gould 4-1 in the semis.

O'Sullivan had a similar run (aka. a great one) getting a spot in the Last 16 after he won 4-0 over Anthony Hamilton, 4-1 over Adam Wicheard, only to end his day by applying a 4-0 scoreline, this time in front of Andrew Norman.
The last day of the competition saw O'Sullivan taking down "The Bulldog" Stephen Lee by 4-2, hammering a two-time PTC champion, Neil Robertson, 4-1 and repeating that performance in the semi-finals, where he defeated Graeme Dott.

Ronnie O'Sullivan - PTC 9 runner-up

The final announced itself to be a classical clash between two "fast and furious players" and although the lads started their cues' battle with some safety shots, it wasn’t long until they sped up their cue action.

O'Sullivan was the one who broke the ice by taking the opener with a 63 break, but Trump was careful enough to respond with a 68 that was levelling the match.

But that's no way to go, right? So the Bristol-boy cashed two consecutive frames after that by using two breaks of 69. He was now 3-1 up.
But that's no way to go right? (yeah, I do realise I said that once!) So, the player we all know as "The Rocket" forced a decider after hitting in breaks of 118 and 132. 

The last frame started with Ronnie making a tiny 16 break and Trump taking chances with a long and dangerous red ... that he managed to pot. From that point on it was just a matter of time and technique to make a nice and steady break. But he lost position at 44 and so the Essex-man retuned at the table.
Sadly for him, he took on a red and missed to pot it, but what's even worse is that he left it on. Judd came back to continue his run and although he fluked frame and match ball, he did win fair and square; closing with a 41 break for a 4-3 final result.

Belgium's crowd is over the moon

The crowd was just mad with excitement and I dare to say that they didn’t really care who won, they were just over the moon with the lads’ performance and the way this final was played: fast, brilliantly well and with passion.

At the end of the match we could see Ronnie smile, pleased with his performance, while Judd had only one problem: he would have liked to win the final without fluking that red. Well, that's snooker and that's life ... you get lucky sometimes, but that doesn't make your victory any less valuable or genuine.

So in conclusion, it was a great final, that kind of final that you just hate when it ends and that only one player can be crowned as champion. 
Belgium has been spoiled with great snooker for the past four days, but the audience responded to that treat by cheering the players and filling the arena for most of the matches. 
I don't think I'm wrong to say we'll be coming back next year.

Below you can check last day list of results:

Last 16
The quarter-finals

The semi-finals
The final