Michael Judge

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Michael Judge
birthday 12th June 1975 (age 45)
place of birth Dublin
nationality IrelandIreland Ireland
professional 1992-2011
Prize money £ 457,438
Highest break 144
Century Breaks 64
Main tour successes
World championships -
Ranking tournament victories -
Minor tournament victories -
World rankings
Highest WRL place 24 ( 2002/03 )

Michael Judge (born June 12, 1975 in Dublin ) is an Irish snooker player from Dublin. From 1992 to 2011 he played on the professional tour for 19 years .

Career

Beginnings and promotion to the top 64

Michael Judge was a successful snooker player as a teenager. At the age of 16 he became Irish U18 and All Ireland U16 champions ( Ireland and Northern Ireland ). As a result, he already took part in the tournaments of the professional tour , which was open to all in the 1990s, in the following year . At his second tournament, the 1992 Grand Prix , he missed the main tournament by just one win. He had survived eight qualifying rounds and defeated Chris Small , among others . His second best result was the 6th round at the World Cup . At the Irish Professional Championship he reached the round of 16. So he started at the end of the season at number 262 in the world rankings , which saved him a few qualifying rounds. In his sophomore year he initially struggled, but at the 1994 Thailand Open he made it to the bottom 64 and before that he won four of his five qualifying games to zero, one of them against former top 16 player Cliff Wilson . But he missed the main tournament again in the top 32 tournament. At the World Cup he improved to the bottom 96. In the following season he repeated the entry into the bottom 64 at the Dubai Classic and the UK Championship . In the latter tournament, the second most important ranking tournament, this was equivalent to his first entry into a main tournament . At the Welsh Open 1995 he was in the last 64 of his compatriot, the world number 7. Ken Doherty , whom he defeated 5: 4 in a narrow decision frame. Also 5: 4 he then lost to Mark Flowerdew . He also reached the main tournament at the British Open and had no chance against world number one Stephen Hendry at 1: 5. In the world rankings he made a jump to 100th place after the 1994/95 season .

In 1995/96, the Irishman almost always reached at least the last 128 round of professional tournaments. The best result of the season was a place in the last 32 at the 1996 International Open . Previously, he had beaten number 5 in the world rankings James Wattana 5: 3 in the first main round of the tournament . The following season he reached the round of 16 at the Benson & Hedges Championship , but the top 16 did not take part in the tournament. A few months later, at the British Open , he reached the round of 16 for the first time in a full ranking tournament and even the quarter-finals after defeating Dominic Dale . He had previously won against Ken Doherty one more time. At the World Cup at the end of the season, he reached the last qualifying round for the first time and just missed the main round at the Crucible Theater by a 9:10 against Gary Wilkinson . He also improved himself to the top 64 in the world and qualified for the Main Tour, which was limited from the following season.

The years in the top 32

In the next two years, however, his performance stagnated. In the 1997/98 season , he never got beyond the last 64. This continued the following year until he came back to the bottom 32 for the first time at the 1999 British Open . At the following World Cup , he again just missed the Crucible entry with 9:10, this time against the Northern Irishman Terry Murphy . In the following year he reached the round of 32 twice and defeated, among others, the Thai James Wattana at the Thailand Masters 2000 . Although he missed the main tournament for the third time at the World Cup (7:10 against Darren Morgan ), the rankings went up again. In the 2000/2001 season he defeated Terry Murphy and Paul Hunter at the UK Championship and achieved his best result at the tournament with the round of 16. He also made it to the round of 16 at the Thailand Masters and the Scottish Open . He defeated the top 16 player Dave Harold twice . At the 2001 World Cup , he had to face Jimmy White in the last 48 round. With a 10: 7 victory he made his first Crucible entry and his first game in this venue he won 10: 6 against the world number 10. John Parrott . In the second round of the World Cup he lost 7:13 against Ken Doherty. At the end of the season he was in the top 32 in the world for the first time in 28th place.

The following year Judge was able to confirm the performance, at the European Open and the Scottish Open he made it to the second round twice. With Joe Swail and Mark King he defeated two other top 16 players. At the Benson & Hedges Championship, not counting for the world rankings, he reached the quarter-finals. The great successes did not materialize, however, at the UK Championship and the World Championship he reached the bottom 32 again, but then lost both times to Peter Ebdon , who was then also world champion. Nevertheless, in the end he achieved the best world ranking of his career with 24th place.

In the 2002/03 season he reached the last 32 at the LG Cup and the British Open and the quarter-finals one last time at the Benson & Hedges Championship, but then lost all opening matches until the end of the season and thus also missed his third Crucible entry in Episode. The weak second half of the season also cost him his top 32 placement. In the following years it stagnated around 40th place in the ranking. 2003/04 he reached the last 32 twice and just missed another main round entry at the World Cup with 9:10 against John Parrott . The 2004/05 season began with another career highlight: At the Grand Prix , he defeated world number two Mark Williams and then Marcus Campbell , Marco Fu and Joe Perry . This was the only time in his career that he was in a ranking tournament in the semifinals, which he lost 6-1 to Ian McCulloch . But then he did not survive his opening match in 6 of the 7 following tournaments. Only at the Irish Masters did he make it to the round of 16, defeating the number 5 in the world with John Higgins . In the following year he lost in all ranking tournaments at the latest in the second round. The quarter-finals of the Irish Professional Championship for Irish and Northern Irish players was the only success of the season.

But he surpassed this at the beginning of the following season when he reached the final after victories over Fergal O'Brien and David Morris and finally only Ken Doherty had to admit defeat 4: 9. After that it went better in the other tournaments, at the Malta Cup 2007 he reached the round of 32 and at the Welsh Open after victories over the top 16 players Ryan Day and Barry Hawkins the second round. At the World Cup , he failed again almost 9:10 against Marco Fu in the last qualifying round. But all of this brought him back up in the world rankings for the first time. And after 2007/08 the Grand Prix and the Welsh Open reached the second round and against Michael Holt his third Crucible established itself in the World Cup had made perfect - where he lost against Ryan Day - he advanced with 33 years again at number 30 in the world rankings.

Rapid descent and amateur years

The next season was very mixed. Two rounds of 16 at the Bahrain Championship and the Welsh Open faced six defeats at the beginning. At the World Cup , he lost for the eighth time in his career in the final qualifying round, more often than any other player. When he was eliminated three times in the first round in only six ranking tournaments in the 2009/10 season and only reached the last 32 round, he lost many points in the two-year ranking of the world rankings. In the following year there was a big upheaval in professional snooker with many new tournaments, but the Irishman was unable to take advantage of the many opportunities either in the large tournaments or in the small tournaments of the new Players Tour Championship . In total, he only won three matches in the entire season. As a result, he dropped out of the top 64 and missed qualifying for the next season after 19 years as a professional.

After his professional career, Michael Judge remained successfully active in amateur snooker. In 2013 he became the first Irish amateur champion . The following year he lost the final to Martin McCrudden. In 2013 and 2014 he reached the last 32 of the amateur world championships and the quarter-finals in 2016 . At the European Championships he made it to the round of 16 in 2016 and 2017. In 2018 he won his second national championship title and, at the age of 42, took part in the Q School's Main Tour qualification tournaments. In 2019 he became UK Seniors Champion in the final against Jimmy White.

successes

Ranking tournaments:

Other professional tournaments:

Amateur tournaments:

swell

  1. ↑ a b c Profile of Michael Judge at CueTracker (as of May 18, 2018)
  2. ↑ cf. Data sheet ( memento from May 19, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) for Q School 2018 - Event 1 by World Snooker ; other sources also mention January 12, 1975.
  3. ↑ Michael Judge - Player Profile , Ravindra Kumar Gupta, RKG Snooker, accessed May 18, 2018.
  4. ↑ Michael Judge Wins Irish National Championship , David Caulfield, SnookerHQ, May 14, 2018.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Judge, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish snooker player
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH Dublin , Ireland