Ding Junhui Defeats World No. 1 Trump in a Thrilling 5-4 Victory, Continues Winning Streak Against Two World Champions
Beijing Time, January 10th News: The 2025 Snooker Lhasa Winter Plateau Challenge has come to a successful conclusion. "China's No. 1" Ding Junhui delivered impressive scores of 109, 104, 118, 87, 57, and 56, ultimately defeating the world's No. 1 Judd Trump with a total score of 5-4 to claim the championship. Prior to this, he also triumphed over three-time World Champion Mark Williams with a score of 5-3.
Towards the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, the Macau Masters Invitational, Hangzhou Performance Match, and Lhasa Winter Plateau Snooker Challenge were held successively. Both "China's No. 1" Ding Junhui and the world's No. 1 "Accuracy King" Trump participated in all three events, facing each other in all of them. Ding Junhui's record against Trump in these events stands at two wins and one loss.
In the Macau Masters Invitational, Ding Junhui lost to the world's No. 1 Trump with a score of 1-5. Following this, he also suffered a 1-5 defeat against O'Sullivan. Competing back-to-back in the Hangzhou Performance Match, Ding Junhui faced O'Sullivan again, resulting in another 1-5 loss.
After the crushing 1-5 defeat by O'Sullivan, Ding Junhui faced the world's No. 1 Trump once more. Having previously lost consecutively to O'Sullivan and Trump, would this match provide an opportunity to halt his losing streak? The answer is affirmative.
The match concluded with Ding Junhui narrowly winning 5-4. Subsequently, Ding Junhui met Trump again in the Lhasa Winter Plateau Snooker Challenge. In the first game, Ding Junhui quickly entered the game, scoring a single shot of 87 points, securing an 88-1 victory and starting strong with a 1-0 lead.
In the second game, after adapting from the previous game, Trump quickly regained his form, scoring a single shot of 87 points to shut out Ding Junhui with an 88-0 score, leveling the match at 1-1. In the third game, Ding Junhui exerted himself again, finding a fiery offensive rhythm in the game and directly scoring a single shot of 109 points, shutting out Trump 109-0 to lead 2-1 once more.
In the fourth game, Trump scored 63 points to tie the game again, bringing the score to 2-2. In the subsequent games, both sides tied at 3-3. Trump won a match point in the seventh game with a 4-3 lead, but Ding Junhui managed to win two consecutive games under desperate circumstances, reversing the overall score to 5-4 for the victory. On the second day of this competition, Ding Junhui also defeated three-time World Champion "Golden Left Hand" Mark Williams with a score of 5-3.