Judd Trump finds Mark Williams a ‘strange player to play against’ as they prepare for another clash in Saudi Arabia on Thursday.
The two former world champions have met in some classics in recent years, including two World Championship semi-finals, a Masters final and the epic showpiece of the first Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters.
Trump won three of those four matches mentioned, but Williams prevailed in the most recent thanks to a brilliant 17-14 win in Sheffield this year.
The Englishman and the Welshman meet at the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship on Thursday and Trump will expect the unexpected from Williams again.
‘His style of play is very different to everyone, I think,’ Trump told Metro. ‘He’s a very strange player to play against and also one of the best potters of strange balls.
‘I think he’s somebody, over the last few years, who against the top players he’s still got his A game.
‘I think now and again he struggles to get up against some of the lower-ranked players and he loses a lot more than maybe Ronnie [O’Sullivan], or John [Higgins] seems to be quite consistent at getting through to the last 16, last eight.
‘I think Mark struggles a little bit more to get up for that but when he’s there and he’s playing the top players, he’s still an incredible player.’
Trump has said before that he feels Williams is a much more dangerous player now than he was in the past, insisting that when he first took on the Welsh Potting Machine on the professional tour, he wasn’t that good!
‘For me, even though he disagrees, when I was growing up, coming through and playing him when I was younger, he wasn’t that good,’ said Trump. ‘He didn’t score that heavy.
‘The last few World Championships, in Saudi and the Masters, he’s been a lot more heavy-scoring than he used to be. He’s still, on his day, maybe not as consistent but he still has amazing performances.’
The aforementioned final of the first Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters was won in unforgettable fashion by Trump on the final black.
At 9-9, Williams made a break of 62 but a missed red allowed Trump to return to the table and knock in a 72 to win the £500,000 top prize in stunning style.
‘Even though it doesn’t have the history of some of the other events, still at that time in that clearance it felt like a major event,’ recalls Trump. ‘So I think it’s easily in my top-three clearances of all time under the pressure, probably my best I’d say.
‘I put it probably as my third or fourth best win of all time I think in terms of how it made me feel and the satisfaction.
‘I’ve done everything else I wanted to in the game but I’ve never had that kind of feeling of making a break like that in a deciding frame of a big tournament with that amount of money on the line. ‘
That clearance cost Williams £300,000 as he took home the runner-up prize of £200,000 but the famously relaxed three-time world champion insists it barely fazed him.
‘I was one shot away from winning half a million and he’s done a brilliant clearance,’ says Williams. ‘It makes me laugh when people say, “It’ll take him a while to get over that defeat.” What nonsense.
‘I forgot about it as soon as I came off. I lost 10-9 on the black. Yeah, OK, £500,000. I still had £200,000 for losing. It’s not a bad day. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m just involved in a great match.
‘One match he beat me again in the deciding frame, but I’ve got a few back on him since then. Swings and roundabouts.’