Ding Junhui Wins Thrilling 5-4 Victory Over Trump, Masters: 6-5 Clash with World No. 1 Looms
At 1:17 am Beijing time on January 17th, the 2025 Snooker Masters continued. In the second match of the first day of the quarter-finals, "Little Cannon" Mark Allen led four-time world champion "Grinder" Mark Selby 4-1 after the fifth game. Tonight, "China's No. 1" Ding Junhui will face off against the world's number one player, Judd Trump, who eliminated Williams 6-5 in the first round.
The Snooker Masters is one of the three major snooker events and is highly regarded by all players. Last season, "China's No. 1" Ding Junhui made a maximum break of 147 points in the competition but unfortunately lost to his old rival O'Sullivan.
In this year's Masters, Ding Junhui returned to compete again, hoping for better performance. In the first round, his opponent was Williams from the "Three Musketeers of '75," and after fierce competition, he managed to win two consecutive games when trailing 4-5, ultimately reversing Williams 6-5 to advance to the quarter-finals.
In today's quarter-finals, Ding Junhui will face his old rival, the world's number one "Accuracy King" Judd Trump, who eliminated this season's UK Championship runner-up Barry Hawkins 6-2 in the first round.
Prior to the Lhasa Winter Plateau Snooker Challenge, Ding Junhui had just faced Trump and narrowly won 5-4. In that match, Ding Junhui remained very close with his opponent in the first four games, with the score tied at 1-1 and 2-2.
In the fifth game, Trump made a single shot of 109, bringing the score to 3-2. In the sixth game, Ding Junhui quickly responded with a single shot of 56 points, winning 80-38, tying the score at 3-3, and both sides returned to the starting line. In the seventh game, Trump broke the century mark with a single shot, taking a match point at 4-3.
In the subsequent games, with no room for retreat, Ding Junhui launched a major counterattack, consecutively making shots of 104 and 118 points, and after winning two consecutive games, he reversed Trump 5-4 in total score to win the championship of this event. And in the previous Hangzhou exhibition match, Ding Junhui also defeated Trump with a 5-4 victory.