Stephen Hendry disappointed in Zhao Xintong and worried for another snooker star

Stephen Hendry has been left disappointed with the performances of Zhao Xintong since he became world champion, while he feels Judd Trump should be worried about his current run of form.

Trump is still sitting at the top of the world rankings but has had a disappointing start to the season and has not been past the last 16 in a ranking event.

The 36-year-old has not won a title of any sort in 2025, which represents a pretty lengthy drought by the standards he has set for himself in recent years.

It is certainly a comedown from last season when he won the Saudi Arabia Masters, UK Championship and Shanghai Masters and reached the final of the Xi’an Grand Prix, Northern Ireland Open and Players Championship.

Hendry is not sure how Trump is feeling, but says he would be worried in his position, with a sharp downturn in results and a string of excellent players fighting to usurp him at the top of the sport.

‘If I was Judd…Judd might not be worrying, but if I was Judd in his position as world number one I’d be worried because he’s not won a tournament in the calendar year,’ the seven-time world champion said on the Snooker Club podcast.

‘He’s world number one and been so used to being an absolute serial winner the last three, four, five years. If I was him I’d be worried, I’m not saying he is, but I wouldn’t like to be in this situation.

‘It just puts more pressure on the next event and then the next event and the next event. It’s easy to say, “I’m sure he’ll come good because he’s world number one and he’s so good,” but you can’t really stay still, you’ll go backwards because there’s so many more players there to take it off you. For me, it’s worrying times for Judd.’

Hendry added: ‘When he starts to lose, other players start to see that and they’re not quite as frightened going in against him, they’re not quite as intimidated.’

However, despite warning about the complacency of assuming Trump will turn things around, Hendry does expect him to.

‘I’m sure he’ll turn it around because he’s that good,’ said the Scot. ‘He just needs a run of two or three matches where he wins them easily, wins them by playing really good snooker, not scraping through them but winning them convincingly. Then I think he’ll get his mojo back.’

Having a similar season to Trump so far is Zhao, who has reached just one ranking last 16 at the Saudi Arabia Masters and continued his poor form with a second round defeat to Robert Milkins at the Xi’an Grand Prix last week.

The Cyclone was immense in Sheffield as he won the World Championship earlier this year and Hendry feels he is finding it hard to deal with everything that has come with becoming China’s first world champion.

‘He’s struggling. I think he’s struggling under the weight of being world champion,’ he said of Zhao.

‘I’m actually a wee bit disappointed in him. I thought he’d be able to handle it better.

‘Listen, no one knows what’s going to happen when you win the world title, obviously he’s had huge attention in China, he seems to be endorsing everything that’s good so his head must be spinning, but I still thought that he’d play better than he has done.’

Both Trump and Zhao will be in action on Sunday at the Northern Ireland Open in Belfast as they look to fire back to winning ways.

Zhao takes on Jordan Brown in his opener, with Trump facing Anthony McGill in a testing first outing.

Both will need to pick up some more wins in ranking events if they are to qualify for the World Grand Prix in February, which features the top 32 on the one-year ranking list.

Zhao is at number 22 on those rankings currently, so reasonably well placed, but Trump is down at number 34.

There are plenty of chances for both to get the results they need, though, starting with the trip to Belfast followed by the International Championship in Nanjing and the UK Championship in York, both in November.

There is then the Shoot Out, Scottish Open and German Masters in terms of ranking events all before the Grand Prix in Hong Kong in February.