Players Championship: Early Ronnie O’Sullivan match highlights Judd Trump’s tricky road to reclaiming snooker’s throne

When Judd Trump meets Ronnie O’Sullivan in the first round of the Cazoo Players Championship on Tuesday night it marks the latest chapter of a rivalry between two authentic crowd-pleasers. A match-up which could easily have been a final, they are clashing in the first round because Trump is 14th on the one-year list used to determine the 16-man field. This season he has so far failed to get past the quarter-finals of a ranking event, although he did win the prestigious Champion of Champions last November.

Ad/> Trump and Mark Selby have been trading the world No 1 position this season but, with Selby absent from the field, O’Sullivan will return to top spot for the first time in three years if he wins the title. Players Championship'Horrible time' – Walden couldn't sleep and turned to drink as he feared 21-year career was over4 HOURS AGO When he was starting out, the forty-somethings were great players of their day on the slide – the likes of Dennis Taylor, Terry Griffiths and Cliff Thorburn. Trump may have reasonably expected that the players he idolised as a boy would have seriously declined by now, but there is no sign of that.

Trump is six months from his 33rd birthday and has won 22 ranking titles. At the same age, O’Sullivan had won 20, although there were fewer ranking events back in 2008. The 20th was his third world title, and this is important to note because, like it or not, snooker careers are ultimately measured by the sport’s biggest event.

The World Championship is an examination of skill, stamina and nerve like no other. It defines a snooker player in the public mind for good or bad. Players Championship 2022 — Latest results, scores, schedule Can O'Sullivan return to world No.