Trump triumphs in Telford snooker opening day
Judd Trump is hoping to reap the benefit of a recent rest period after easing past Chris Wakelin to reach the second round of the Players' Championship in Telford.
Trump, who has won four ranking titles already this season, took the unusual step of skipping last week's Welsh Open in the hope of preserving energy for the remainder of the campaign.
Trump shrugged off a slow start to reel off four frames in a row to overcome Wakelin, finishing the match with a break of 139.
He said in an interview with wst.tv: "It was a little bit different for me, it was tough for me on the back of a win to not play the next week, but it just felt like it was the right thing to do, just to pace myself.
"A couple of times in past seasons when I've had amazing seasons, I've kind of ran out of steam at the end, so hopefully this will do the trick this time."
John Higgins continued his recent resurgence as he won the last two frames to beat Ding Junhui 6-4 and join Trump in the second round.
The veteran Scot, who reached the semi-finals of last week's Welsh Open, started with a break of 102 but trailed twice to the Chinese player before two frames on the bounce nudged him ahead at 4-3.
Ding responded with his second century of the match, a 127 in frame eight, to pull level but Higgins responded with back-to-back breaks of 65 and 100 to seal victory.
