Judd Trump managed to get a laugh out of the Crucible crowd as he tricked the referee to look away before moving a ball with his hand during his World Championship quarter-final with Stuart Bingham.
The 2019 world champion had accidentally snookered himself as he chased a century break. He found himself stuck behind the pink with no truly available route to pot the brown, his next ball.
Trump assessed his options, but it seemed as though he could only truly play a shot off multiple cushions and hope for the best. Eurosport commentator David Hendon even said: “Well it’s going to be a trick shot if it’s to be a century.”
Instead, Trump opted to distract referee Ben Williams and move the pink ball with his hand to free up a path to the brown - to the pleasure of the raucous crowd. After a fan coughed, Trump pointed towards the crowd and suggested there was a disturbance threatening to throw him off his game.
With Williams distracted, Trump quickly moved the pink and fired his next shot before the official had even turned around. By the time he had, balls were flying around the table and the Sheffield crowd were in stitches.
Eventually, the blue found a home in the bottom left pocket to add to the confusion for Williams before it became clear what had gone down. Trump returned to his chair with a huge smile on his face.
“Fantastic. Ben Williams fell right for that, didn’t he. ‘Look away, I’ll move the pink’,” continued Hendon after the incident.
“Things are turning round for Trump, he’s enjoying it suddenly. That was like something out a sitcom.”
After Trump found the funny side of competitive snooker, he secured the final three frames of the second session to draw level with Bingham at 8-8. The two men will play to a conclusion from 19:00 BST on Wednesday - with the winner set to face Mark Williams in the last four.
