World Snooker Championship 2019: Judd Trump leads John Higgins in final after thrilling show of bravado

Trump will begin bank holiday Monday’s finale with a 12-5 lead after a breathtaking Sunday in which together he and Higgins racked up seven centuries

The silence. There is no other sporting venue with a silence like the Crucible: a stomach-churning, sphincter-gripping silence which reaches every corner of the room, from the terracotta carpet to the high ceiling above, from the glass commentary box at one end to the trophy standing on a plinth at the other.

There is no one better at handling that silence than John Higgins. This is his eighth World Championship final, and he has mastered the art of playing in an impenetrable bubble. Yet by the end of the evening Judd Trump had entirely diffused the hush with his thrilling combination of brave potting and bravado: he finished one of his three century breaks with a behind-the-back black and messed around with an airborne rest in another, drawing laughter from the crowd and even a smile from Higgins. Trump has sometimes misjudged the balance between entertainment and effectiveness, but not here.

He will begin bank holiday Monday’s finale with a 12-5 lead after a breathtaking Sunday in which together he and Higgins racked up seven centuries – the most in any final in history is eight, and this one still has plenty left to run. The pair matched each other stride for stride in the afternoon session, each landing giant blows as they finished level at 4-4, but Trump raced away in the evening with the sort of brilliance well worthy of a world champion.

It has taken him longer to earn this opportunity than many people predicted after he lost his only other World Championship final in 2011, also against Higgins. Partly that is a symptom of playing snooker in an era of the class of 92 – Higgins, O’Sullivan, Williams – but mostly it is because he has needed time to adapt to the Crucible way: learning how to last the distance, how to control the invisible ebbs and flows of a marathon match, and how to use defence as a weapon.

The latter was on show here: leading 7-5 and deep into a tense safety exchange, Trump didn’t just find balk but consistently left the white within an inch of the cushion, and eventually he forced Higgins into a mistake. Then he accelerated away with near-immaculate control, sometimes manoeuvring the cue ball through impossible gaps just because he could – and when his plan went awry, he potted a high-risk cut into the middle on his way to another century.

Judd Trump put on a show for the Crucible crowd (Getty ) (Getty)

The pot of the day, and quite possibly the tournament, came earlier when he crashed in a full-length red with screw so deep his whole body squirmed up into the air as the cue ball zipped all the way back to balk. And there were others, like the long blue he buried across the table, or the red he sent up the rail which left a watching Steve Davis mouth agape.

Higgins played a part in his own downfall with some uncharacteristic mistakes, like the moment in the last frame of the night when he left the white short trying to push it up against the green, and he was unlucky with a few long pots which rattled the jaws. But ultimately he was outplayed, and it will take something extraordinary to win his fifth world title this time around.

Trump has been here before, of course. In 2011 he led 10-7 overnight before Higgins hit back on Monday and clinched his fourth and most recent world title. But this feels like an altogether different match, involving an altogether different Trump. He will go to bed trying not to dream of the trophy, thinking only about his next frame and his next shot. But that shouldn’t be hard: in his own flamboyant way, Trump has already mastered the silence.