Seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry didn’t mince his words when criticising a drab affair at the 2025 World Snooker Championship. Judd Trump faced Zhou Yuelong in the first round of the competition, but not all of their encounter was the hair-raising encounter many might have hoped for.
Specifically, Hendry was appalled to see one frame drag on for more than 43 minutes. And the Scot wasn’t looking to save either player’s feelings when he labelled the product as “vile,” though he had other (potentially more offensive) adjectives in mind.
Hendry, 56, appeared simply glad to move on as the seventh frame of Trump and Zhou’s match finally reached its climax. The frame lasted nearly three times as long as what fans are accustomed to at this level of snooker.
It’s not uncommon for elite players to cancel one another out and see frames last up to 30 minutes. But the head-to-head in question turned into a laborious exercise of rarely seen proportions.
Zhou, 27, eventually managed to strike gold and reduced Trump’s lead to 5-2 before both players understandably left the arena for a break. However, when BBC host Seema Jaswal asked Hendry to recall the term he had used to describe the tedious display off-camera, he didn’t hold back.
“There was a few of them. ‘Vile’ was one of them,” he said, per the Daily Express. “Look, you’re always gonna get frames like that. Long matches – best of 19s – you’re not gonna get every frame [featuring] big breaks and finished in 12, 13 minutes.
“You’re gonna have these. And they’re obviously just as important on the scoreboard to win. The good thing about winning them – you can quickly forget about it.
“Judd’s lost it, so he won’t be happy; it sort of interrupted his rhythm a little bit. [The frame was] one for the purists, shall we say.”
An unfortunate break always had the potential to drag in Tuesday’s seventh frame. That was after a bundle of reds gathered above the top cushion, creating little opportunity for a break of any real significance.
Not only that, but both Trump and Zhou had each shown signs of waste earlier in the match. Both were guilty of fluffing opportunities most fans would have expected them to dispatch with relative ease.
In fact, Zhou will likely have been disappointed to have headed into the overnight break sat 6-3 behind overall. That’s considering the chances he left on the table that might have even seen him lead the 2019 world champion at the break.
As it was, however, the current world No1 proved his class to pull clear by four frames at one point, only for Zhou to successfully close the gap in Tuesday’s final phases. And both will be hopeful of putting on a more competent display when they resume on Wednesday.
The fans will be more concerned with entertainment levels rising back to where one would expect when two such talents are facing off at the Crucible. And Hendry is no exception.
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