Snooker star Judd Trump has named Ronnie O’Sullivan as his dream World Championship final opponent – but doesn’t know if he’ll even enter. Seven-time world champion O’Sullivan hasn’t featured in a ranking event since the UK Championship last November and furiously smashed his cue as he lost his temper during a match in January.
That’s left the snooker world wondering whether ‘Rocket’ will compete at the Crucible, as the 49th World Championship gets underway in Sheffield on Friday. Trump, who’s currently ranked No.1 in the world, faced O’Sullivan in the 2022 final and suffered a painful 13-18 defeat.
The 35-year-old won the tournament in 2019, though, and he’s desperate to become a two-time world champion. Should O’Sullivan decide to enter – with a decision needed to be made by draw day on Thursday – he’d be the fifth seed and placed on the opposite side of the draw to Trump, opening up the possibility of a final showdown on Monday, May 5.
“Nobody knows if Ronnie is gonna come back and play,” Trump told Sportsboom. “But I think if he wasn’t then that would be a good final to make.”
O’Sullivan recently revealed that he still has the ‘ energy and hunger’ to play top-level snooker, although he confessed in the same interview that he’s ‘literally forgotten what he used to do’ at the table. “I know it’s not going to be a quick fix,” the 49-year-old explained via the Sun.
“At the moment, it’s like I’ll take a step forward, I get excited, and then bang, I take two back. Then I take a couple forward, and then I take one back.
“You think that’s why I said I want to give myself some time. Give myself some proper time. I still know I can play, I still know I have got the mind and energy and hunger for it. I’ve got to try find the old way of playing snooker. I have literally forgotten what I used to do.”
Should O’Sullivan opt to prolong his hiatus, a final between Trump and reigning champion Kyren Wilson would be some spectacle. Wilson is bidding to end the infamous ‘Crucible Curse’ which has seen 19 first-time winners of the World Championship fail to retain the title since the tournament’s inception in 1977.
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Trump and Wilson have a budding rivalry, as the pair have met in three ranking finals this season. Wilson, 33, dominated Trump by winning in Xi’an, Belfast and Telford.
But it’s been equal in the first two Triple Crown events of the 2024-25 campaign. Trump came out on top in the UK Championship semi-final whereas Wilson won their Masters semi-final.
“There’s a great chance of it happening. We’re both playing very very well. We’ve both been very very consistent,” Trump said of a potential World Championship final against Wilson.
“It’s always difficult to keep up that level of performance for a full season, and he’s managed, too. I’ve done it for a few times now.”
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