Jones reaches semis with shock win over out of sorts Trump

Jak Jones pulled off the biggest win of his career by knocking out a lacklustre Judd Trump to reach the semi-finals of the World Snooker Championship for the first time.

Resuming at 8-8, the Welsh qualifier won 13-9 in a final session which was riddled with errors from both players at The Crucible, closing out with a century break. Jones will face the winner of the match between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stuart Bingham.

It was a nervy start, with Jones missing what was described as the “easiest blue ever” during commentary on Eurosport and discovery+. But although Trump had a chance to take advantage, a missed pink allowed Jones back in to take the opening frame 60-27.

The second frame of the day was just as scrappy, but Trump was keeping Jones at arm’s length. But a gift from the Welshman – a foul while potting the pink – cleared a path for the 2019 winner to level things up again at 9-9 by taking the frame 59-24.

If Trump was hoping that could kickstart a run of form to the semi-finals, that was not immediately the case. Jones bounced back impressively for a man who is yet to reach the last four at the Crucible, with a break of 87 doing the damage to lead the match.

By this point, Trump’s highest break of the session was just 22 and another miss of the pink let Jones back in again. “The interval needs to come for Trump” said Joe Johnson on commentary. Jones was not playing like a man who had come through qualifying and he did the necessary, moving to move to within two frames of victory with another half century break.

The interval gave both players a chance to re gather their thoughts but the 15 minutes seemed to make little difference to Trump. Jones was also missing, but his higher-ranked opponent missed an easy yellow.

Jones missed two chances to close out the frame, leading to a tense back and forth of each player trying to snooker the other – “this is like watching a horror film” said Dave Hendon on commentary, before the qualifier finally put the world number two away.

Trump now needed to win four straight frames to avoid an early exit, which had not looked likely based on form throughout the session. But another miss on a brown opened the reds up for Jones, who finished with a break of 106.