Bourne wrote:Stevens fangirls
Trump vs Hendry is the passing of the sport's baton, you'd have thought the sport's fans would want to witness that sort of history but obviously not
Hendry passed the baton to Neil Robertson at last months Masters, and pretty much everybody he played in the Champions League. And to Mark Williams in the UK Championship. He passed the baton on to Martin Gould twice recently.
If Judd Trump beats Stephen Hendry he won't have proved he's the future. He'll just add credance to the belief that Hendry is getting ever closer to retirement. Something Hendry acknowledges himself in his decision to try his hand at commentary. Judd Trump winning won't be any kind of passing of the baton, it'll just be viewed as him beating a well past his best legend. A bit like a young player these days beat Jimmy White in the first round. It's so mundane, it doesn't prove anything itself.
Judd Trump needs to start winning tournaments, or at least consistently getting to the business end ala Mark Allen before giving it large about batons being passed and the future of snooker. And if he does that, then the fact he beats Hendry or somebody else in the first round won't matter. In fact, it'd mean more if he got a second with over Ronnie, or beat Higgins, Williams or Ding. Somebody who is still considered capable.
Of course, should Hendry win, and do his usual of getting knocked out in the second match he plays, then this proves little either. Except for being a bit of a disaster for your opinion that Judd is the future of course.
Ding and Matthew Stevens should, in theory, be one-sided. Ding is a proven tournament winner, and is looking to move onto bigger and better things. Matthew Stevens rarely qualifies any more, so you would expect him to lose, quite well. But, when you consider that Matthew Stevens qualified for the last ranking event, the UK Championships, and that he met Ding in the first round it adds some interest. Will he be able to do better then he did before? The fact that he has qualified for the last two tournaments it has been possible for him to suggest it's possible he is finding form again, and will want to banish his relatively poor scoreline in Telford. Sport doesn't always go the way it should 'in theory'.