UK Snooker Championship final: Pistol fires but Judd hangs on for UK title (From York Press)

UK Snooker Championship final: Pistol fires but Judd hangs on for UK title

10:20am Monday 12th December 2011 in Sport

IT was a quite incredible final, and it took an incredible player to beat Mark Allen as Judd Trump claimed the williamhill.com UK Snooker Championship.

Trailing 3-1, Trump won seven frames in a row to put himself on the brink of victory and then somehow managed to hold his nerve as the Ulsterman charged back into contention.

Having seen his 8-3 lead whittled down to 9-8 as Allen hit three centuries in four frames to pile on the pressure, Trump produced a super cool 91 to get over the line – and realise his potential as the best player of his generation.

It was a match of the highest quality, with an evening session that took scoring into the stratosphere.

Trump hit breaks of 109, 78, 74, 76 and 91, while Allen scored with 139, 129, 125 and 95 in an astonishing set of frames.

In the event, Trump’s purple patch during the middle of the match was what got him through.

Naturally, he looked a little nervous, and twitchy, as Allen held the winning line at bay but, once the Northern Irishman had seen a long red snatch in the jaws of the left-hand corner and propel up the table to sit close to the green pocket, Trump was calmness personified.

The 22-year-old has long been heralded as the future of snooker, the hype only increasing after his run to the World Championship final in May. Now he has the trophy, his first major ranking title, to match the promise.

The early momentum of the match was with Allen, though, a magnificent 141 clearance in the third frame helping him forge into an early 3-1 lead.

In the middle of the fifth, however, he erred – missing an easy red into a middle pocket and sat helpless as Trump closed the gap with a break of 52.

Allen had controlled the safety battle before then but, once the Bristolian smelt blood, he went for the kill in brutal fashion.

It came to a climax in a masterpiece of a seventh frame as Trump exhibited a sumptuous range of positional shots and potting, including a brilliant effort off a cushion to dislodge the last red on his way to 75.

Allen, at 5-3 behind at the interval, was surely just happy to get out of the arena.

He had trailed Ricky Walden by the same margin at the half-way point of their semi-final and had won the first four frames of the evening session to stamp his authority on the match.

In Trump, however, he found a much harder nut to crack. He simply carried on as he had in the afternoon.

He took the opening frame with 109 and then, after Allen lost position on 40, made him pay with 78 in the next before further extending his lead with 74.

At 8-3 behind, Allen looked a beaten man but he has shown guts and determination this week, on the table and off in the face of a media storm, and he went back to well as he summoned an unlikely comeback.

Consecutive centuries either side of the mid-session interval, clearances of 139 and 129, gave him a foot-hold and, even when Trump went 9-5 up with 76, Allen did not give in. He responded with his fourth century of the match, 125, and, with his opponent beginning to get jittery, he won the next two – the latter with 95 – to close the gap to just one frame.

But when the red hit the jaws and Allen watched as it gave Trump the easiest of starters, the comeback was at an end.

Snooker’s new era has truly begun.