Sport

Ronnie O’Sullivan claims UK Championship snooker crown

World champion defeats Judd Trump 10-9 to complete stellar year

Ronnie O’Sullivan in action at the during the Coral UK Championship at the Barbican Centre, York.
Ronnie O’Sullivan in action at the during the Coral UK Championship at the Barbican Centre, York.
Sun Dec 07 2014 - 22:20

Ronnie O'Sullivan completed a stellar year by fending off a dramatic Judd Trump comeback to win the Coral UK Championship.

A 10-9 victory gave 39-year-old O’Sullivan, who came to the tournament at York’s Barbican Centre with a broken ankle, his fifth UK title, to go with his five World Championship trophies and five Masters crowns.

He earns £150,000, to go with the £44,000 he pocketed for Thursday's 147 break against Matt Selt. The blip in O'Sullivan's 12 months came with defeat to Mark Selby in the World Championship final, but in capturing the Masters, Welsh Open, Champion of Champions and now this latest triumph he has shown he is only getting better with age.

Disappointing

Trump was disappointing for a large part of his second UK final, three years after beating Mark Allen in the same venue to carry off the silverware. But the 25-year-old Bristolian found his potting prowess when on the brink of defeat at 9-4 adrift, and a jaw-dropping recovery saw him force the deciding frame.

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Trump treated a rapt audience to 90 minutes of mid-evening fireworks as he dashed off back-to-back centuries followed by breaks of 86 and 67 to reduce the best-of-19 contest to a single-frame shoot-out.

If either man was quaking heading into the final frame, it should have been O’Sullivan, but after inching in front early on he rattled in a clinching 51. Trump, needing snookers, decided he had seen enough and offered O’Sullivan his hand, the pair sharing a warm embrace.