World Snooker Championship 2024: Ronnie O'Sullivan aims for eighth Crucible title

Judd Trump says anything other than winning the 2024 World Championship would be “a failure”, but thinks Ronnie O’Sullivan is the tournament favourite.

World number one O’Sullivan is looking to win the Crucible title for a record-breaking eighth time while Trump, ranked second, won the event in 2019.

Trump plays on Saturday’s opening day, against Iran’s Hossein Vafaei, while O’Sullivan has to wait until Wednesday.

“All the greats have managed to win the worlds multiple times,” said Trump, 34.

“It’s different to be playing on the first day, so nice to get involved in the tournament straight away. It has been a good season and I feel a lot more confident than last year.”

Trump has won the English Open, Wuhan Open, Northern Ireland Open, German Masters and World Open in 2023-24, but lost 10-7 in the World Grand Prix final to O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan, 48, has also lifted the World Masters and Shanghai Masters trophies, as well as winning the other two of snooker’s Triple Crown events – the Masters and the UK Championship.

O’Sullivan has won both the Masters and UK Championship a record eight times and another Crucible success would move him clear of Stephen Hendry’s seven world titles.

“With the season Ronnie’s had he will still come in as favourite,” Trump added.

“He has a lot of pressure on him and it would humungous to get the 8-8-8 [World, UK and Masters titles] in the same season. There’s more expectation on him than in the past 10 years.”

Trump beat John Higgins 18-9 in the 2019 final, but lost to O’Sullivan 18-13 in the 2022 showpiece.

However, they cannot meet in this year’s final as Belgium’s reigning champion Luca Brecel is the top seed, meaning Trump and O’Sullivan would play in the semi-finals if they got there.

“I would’ve loved to have played him in another final but in a semi-final he would be more vulnerable,” said Trump, who will only be satisfied with lifting the trophy on 6 May.

“Unless I win it’s a failure. If I go home from a tournament and not won, it’s a failure. It’s a horrible feeling, losing, and anything less than a win is not good enough. Even if I lost to Ronnie in the semi-finals it would feel a failure.”

Brecel, ranked fourth in the world, beat O’Sullivan in the 2023 quarter-finals on his way to a maiden world title, defeating four-time champion Mark Selby in the final.

He begins his defence against 2019 semi-finalist David Gilbert, with the first session on Saturday from 10:00 BST, before they return for the evening session from 19:00 – meaning Brecel will either be the first man into the last 16 or the first eliminated.

No first-time Crucible world champion has retained his title, and the 29-year-old believes he can break the so-called ‘Crucible Curse’.

“It’s my only chance to do it and I’m going to go for it and if it doesn’t happen that’s fine,” he said. “It will happen at some point, who knows I might do it. If I play at the same level I have a really good chance.

“It’s tough to win the first time and then people get so much attention the next year they sort of crumble. That’s not going to happen to me. If I lose, it will be because I didn’t play well enough, not because I’m under too much pressure.”

Elsewhere, world number three Mark Allen has twice reached the Crucible semi-finals and feels there is more to come.

He said: “I have won three tournaments and I’m up there in the one-year list and world rankings, but I don’t feel I’m playing as well as I would like. I have a chance of winning even if I don’t play well, which is a great place to be.”

Three-time world champion Mark Williams has beaten O’Sullivan, Allen and Trump in his past three matches and added: “I’m not going as one of the favourites, but as one of the people they won’t want to play. I have got a chance if I keep playing the way I am.”