Judd Trump Northern Ireland Open: Out in Another Best-of-7 Decider

Judd Trump went into Monday night with four Northern Ireland Open titles behind him and came out of it beaten 4–3 by Martin O'Donnell, who had come through qualifying in September by beating Chatchapong Nasa 4–1.

Four days ago this site argued that the short matches were the part of this event Trump should worry about least. Over seven frames he had won 17 of 20 matches since June 2025. That still holds after Monday: 17 wins from 21, by 80 frames to 34. What the argument missed is where the four defeats came from.

Every loss a decider

All four of Trump's best-of-7 defeats in our records since June 2025 finished 4–3. Elliot Slessor at the 2025 English Open, Shaun Murphy at the 2025 British Open, Zhao Xintong in the semi-finals of the Riyadh Season Championship, and now O'Donnell. Nobody has beaten him by two frames over this distance in 16 months.

Take the deciders on their own and the picture turns over. Trump has played five deciding frames in best-of-7 matches in that time and won one, against Anthony McGill in the last 16 of the English Open in September. In the four he lost he scored 7, 0, 31 and 5 points. Slessor finished with a 64, Murphy with a 123.

Monday followed the same script. O'Donnell went ahead three times, with breaks of 64, 50 and 52. Trump pulled level each time with a break of 50 or more: 91, 52 and 94. Then O'Donnell won the last frame 87–5 without a single break of 50, picking the points up across several visits while Trump scored five.

Five deciders is a small sample, and one bad frame says little about a player who wins 81% of these matches. But the pattern explains how short-format losses happen to him. Opponents rarely outplay Trump over seven frames. They stay close enough to reach a one-frame shoot-out, and in those he has been ordinary.

O'Donnell had won three of his nine matches this season before Monday, and none of the three came beyond the last 96. In our records, which start in June 2025, they had met once, at the 2025 British Open, where Trump won 4–2. O'Donnell plays Luca Brecel in the last 32. Brecel beat Lei Peifan 4–1 on Monday afternoon.

O'Sullivan's lead goes

A few hours earlier the other headline name in that quarter went the same way. Ronnie O'Sullivan, playing his first match in Belfast since 2022, lost 4–3 to Cheung Ka Wai.

The frame scores show how it turned. Cheung took the opener 68–9. O'Sullivan then made 56, 138 and 72 to lead 3–1 and looked close to the last 32. Cheung replied with 88, 77 and 60 in the last three frames, and O'Sullivan scored 24 points across them.

For Cheung, who came through Q School in May, it was the third 4–3 win of this event. He beat Artemijs Zizins and Oliver Lines by the same score in qualifying. Since June 2025 he has played seven best-of-7 deciders and won four. Next he meets Stuart Bingham, who beat Yao Pengcheng 4–2.

The bottom half opens up

Trump, the sixth seed, and O'Sullivan, the 15th, were drawn in the same quarter of the bracket, with Zhao Xintong, who plays Gao Yang on Tuesday afternoon. Two of those three names are already gone. Barry Hawkins, the 11th seed, also lost on Monday, 4–2 to Daniel Wells, and Chris Wakelin, the 13th, lost 4–1 to Jamie Jones.

That makes nine of the top 16 seeds who have lost their opening match in two days of play: Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, Trump, Shaun Murphy, Hawkins, Xiao Guodong, Wakelin, O'Sullivan and Si Jiahui. John Higgins, the seventh seed, made sure he was not the tenth, beating Liam Highfield 4–1 with a 121 in the second frame.

Our own picks have had a hard week too. Trump was the Form Rating's strongest favourite of the event at 84%, and the prediction record now stands at 5 right from 16, where about 10 would be expected if the percentages were right. Short matches cut both ways, and we said before the event that best of 7 produces more upsets than the longer formats. Two days in, Belfast has gone beyond that.

The full draw, schedule and results are on the Northern Ireland Open 2026 hub. Trump v O'Donnell, with the pre-match numbers: match page. Before the event: why Trump's titles slip in the long matches, and O'Sullivan's return to Belfast. Sunday's results: Selby, Robertson and Murphy out.