Championship League 2012 - Trump breaks ice

Judd Trump breaks the ice

The ice was broken for this year's Snooker Championship League with Judd Trump beating Shaun Murphy 3-2 and winning Group's One final. Hence he gets to be the first player with a secured spot into the Winners' Group.

The fresh conqueror of the UK Championship crown, Judd Trump managed to book himself a place into the last stage of the Championship League after forcing a decider against the 2005 world champion, Shaun Murphy.

Trump obtained victories of 3-2 over Shaun Murphy, 3-0 over Ali Carter and 3-2 in front of Andrew Higginson. However, he did get beat 3-1 by Mark Selby, 3-2 by Mark Davis and 3-0 by Matthew Stevens. 
So, after two days of round-robin matches, the evening saw Bristol's boy with no more than three points in his pocket.

In front of him were Mark Selby with 5 points and Mark Davis with 4, but there was also another player with whom he shared the third place: ironically, it was Shaun Murphy who also got 3 points. 
Still, after counting how many frames both lads won and lost, Murphy got to be on third place, while Trump on forth. But that didn't seem to affect Judd as he hammered Mark Selby 3-1 in the semi-final and set a pretty intensive final against Murphy.

The Smurf only got the runner-up position

The player we all know to have a magical cue was the one who opened the scoreline by hitting a break of 84, but Trump responded with a great 121 to draw level.
One more time, Shaun put his nose in front, this time with as 65 break, but as before the 22-year-old lad knew how to replay and hit a 118 for a 2-2 scoreline.

The last frame saw Trump missing the crucial ball on 67 and Murphy getting a life-line. Sadly for him, he didn't make too much of it, so Judd returned to the table to seal his 3-2 victory as well as a place in the Winners' Group.

So at the end of the day we have one player that has the word winner written on his t-shirt and four that get a bye to Group Two to try their luck for a Winners' Group spot once more. There names are: Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby, Mark Davis and Matthew Stevens.

Unfortunately we also have two players that won't get another chance, Ali Carter and Andrew Higginson failing in qualifying for the next set of matches.

Tomorrow Group Two's players are in action, as it follows:

TABLE 1
11am - Shaun Murphy v. Mark Selby
12.15pm - Mark Williams v. Neil Robertson
Not before 2pm - Mark Selby v. Mark Davis
3.15pm - Neil Robertson v. Stuart Bingham
Not before 6pm - Mark Selby v. Matthew Stevens
7.15pm - Mark Davis v. Stuart Bingham

TABLE 2
11am - Mark Davis v. Matthew Stevens
12.15pm - Stuart Bingham v. Shaun Murphy
Not before 2pm - Matthew Stevens v. Mark Williams
3.15pm - Shaun Murphy v. Mark Davis
Not before 6pm - Mark Williams v. Stuart Bingham
7.15pm - Neil Robertson v. Matthew Stevens
*all hours are UK time

You can watch the boys on www.sportlemon.tv all day long.