Judd Trump denies Shaun Murphy in brilliant World Snooker Championship battle

Judd Trump is into the quarter-finals of the World Snooker Championship thanks to a brilliant 13-10 win over Shaun Murphy at the Crucible.

Both men were in excellent form in the blockbuster second round match, with Murphy doing little wrong in defeat to the spectacular world number one.

The Magician looked like he was going to be beaten much more heavily than he eventually was, with Trump surging into a 12-6 lead.

After an even first session, Trump really hit his stride on Sunday night, making breaks of 89, 97, 106, 132 and 92 to take a 10-6 lead.

Those two centuries took his tally to 100 tons for the season, pocketing himself a bonus of £100,000 in the process.

Trump won the first two frames of Monday afternoon, not slowing down in the break-building stakes, with efforts of 63 and 86.

However, a surprising missed red to middle in the 19th frame appeared to change everything, letting Murphy in and the Magician was not in the mood to spurn an opportunity.

The 2005 world champion has been playing perfectly well, even though he was a long way behind, and he showed that he was actually in stunning form over the next run of frames.

Breaks of 88, 72, 112 and 99 followed, with the match suddenly in the balance again at 12-10 in Trump’s favour.

Murphy was full of confidence, but perhaps he got a bit overexcited as he got in brilliantly in the next frame before missing a relatively straight forward red.

Trump had been kept cold for a while but his form had not wavered, making a break of 58 to put himself in a strong position but not quite over the line.

The Magician came back to get back on the attack but missed his first red, allowing Trump to get going again and win the frame and match.

‘It was a very, very high quality match,’ Stephen Hendry said on the BBC. ‘We expected it with these two players. It was worthy of a final and they delivered.’

Murphy said of a frustrating game: ‘It’s the best I’ve ever played this year at the Championship and lost, I can’t criticse myself too much.

‘I came up against the world number one, the best player on the planet, playing really well. All I can do is praise him, he played fantastically well. We’ll have to go again.’

Next up for Trump looks almost certain to be Luca Brecel in the quarter-finals as the Belgian Bullet holds a 12-4 lead over Ding Junhui heading into the final session of their second round match.

They return to complete that game at 7pm on Monday, with the quarter-finals getting underway on Tuesday.

More to follow…