Player of the Year 2014: The Final Countdown

We’ve seen all 12 candidates now and looked back at all of the months and the players that impressed me the most in each. Now though, it’s time for me to put my money where my mouth is and decide on the final order and my number one player of 2014. So, without further stalling it’s time to start the countdown.

12= Oliver Lines (October) – As I said in the original piece Oliver is a magnificent young player, but having only joined the main professional tour in May and only having a couple of decent runs it’d be tough to say that he is right up there in the top 5 or 10 best players over the whole of 2014.

11= Stephen Maguire (December) – Stephen Maguire may have had a good end to the year with runs to the semi-finals in the Ruhr Open and the UK Championship before winning the Lisbon Open and a semi-final at the Masters got him off to a good start in 2014, but for the most part Maguire was struggling with his game and his form and admitted that himself at the time. So again, in terms of pure consistency and quality throughout the year Maguire isn’t quite up with the best.

10= Ricky Walden (November) – Again, with Maguire, Walden’s 2014 was good in patches but not consistent throughout. Failure to qualify for certain tournaments like the German Masters both in 2014 and for 2015 will disappoint him as will the manner of his UK Championship Last 16 exit 6-0 to Bingham just a month after his International Championship title, but all things considered Ricky can still be very happy with what he achieved in 2014 but hopefully 2015 will see him add some extra consistency to his game.

9= Joe Perry (June) – As well as Joe Perry’s June run to the final of the Wuxi Classic he was also able to make the semi-finals of the Welsh Open and the quarter-finals of both the German Masters and Players Championship Finals and he pushed Ronnie O’Sullivan to the limit in the World Championship Last 16 but wasn’t just able to get over the line. Joe’s top 16 ranking for now is looking pretty solid for now, but a poorer back end to the year is the only reason he isn’t higher on my list.

8= Mark Allen (August) – An early semi-final appearance at the World Open and a quarter-final place in the PC Finals would have pleased Allen and coupled with runs to the final of the Riga Open, Shanghai Masters and International Championship and of course winning the Pau Hunter Classic Allen’s 2014 looks pretty impressive. The only thing that was missing was stronger runs at the Triple Crown events, and winning a big ranking title and converting more of those finals into trophies and if he could’ve done that he’d be right at the top of the list, but unfortunately he couldn’t. However, he’s set a great platform to have another very strong year on 2015.

7= Stuart Bingham (September) – Stuart Bingham has had another incredibly impressive year. As well as his Shanghai Masters victory in September making him Player of the Month, he was also able to make the UK Championship semi-finals for the second year running and looks to be one of the few players who can consistently cause Ronnie O’Sullivan problems. Meanwhile, another two victories on the Asian Tour demonstrates that his “have cue will travel” attitude is paying dividends. For me, the one thing missing for Stuart is a title in the UK or Europe to add to all of his titles on the Asian Tour and in ranking events overseas.

6= Ding Junhui (February) – Ding had a couple of titles at the German Masters and China Open in 2014, but the back half did become a struggle for him with only an Asian Tour title to his name along with a Shanghai Masters semi-final. It could be said I’ve been harsh in not putting Ding higher up this list, but his failures to even qualify for the Wuxi and International is very disappointing and Last 32 exits at the World and UK Championships are also not expected from a player of his calibre. All things considered then he may be the new World No.1 but there is a lot of work for him to do to stay there and perhaps that can be done in 2015.

5= Shaun Murphy (March) – Shaun Murphy’s game was very much down in the dumps in January but in 2014 as a whole he has managed to turn things right around again, winning three European Tour events, the Gdynia Open in February, Bulgarian Open in October and November’s Ruhr Open as well as his first full ranking title for three years in March at the World Open and three 147’s is a record for any player in a calendar. For him to continue his progress a really big title in the UK would be very nice and I certainly think he can get one in 2014.

4= Neil Robertson (April) – As well as his record breaking century of centuries, 2014 saw Neil Robertson defend his Wuxi Classic title in June, make the Australian Open final in July, the China Open final in April (with flu) and the World Championship semi-finals losing a tight battle with Mark Selby. Robertson will be disappointed not to have done better in defending his UK title and early exits in the International Championships and PC Finals were again slightly disappointing but he’s been very consistent overall. To maintain these levels of performance Robertson needs to build a stable base in the smaller European Tour events in order to build up his best form for the big events so he can perform consistently across all events throughout the year but there is no way that you can criticise the Australian’s 2014.

3= Mark Selby (May) – The main reason Mark Selby is at no.3 in my player of the year list is because of his big performances once again on the big stage. Winning the World Championship is plenty good enough as a reason for him to be in the top few players of 2014, finally proving that he can win at the Crucible and he continued his Masters dominance by making another final at the Ally Pally in January. He hasn’t let his performance slip either in the European Tour events winning the Riga Open and making the latter stages in Furth and Sofia. Mark is a superb player and a very hard worker for someone and he’s done superbly in 2014 as he does every single year showing his high level of consistency, which is even more impressive given the fact that snooker is certainly not as natural for him as the likes of O’Sullivan, Trump and Murphy to name a few. The key for Selby is to keep going in 2015 and continue reaching the latter stages of the big events.

2= Ronnie O’Sullivan (January) – Some of you may be very surprised that Ronnie O’Sullivan is not my player of the year. In 2014 he won the Masters very convincingly in January, the Welsh Open in March, made the World Championship final again in May, won the Champion of Champions in November and the UK Championships to end the year making two 147’s and closing in on Stephen Hendry’s centuries record. However, this is the high standard that Ronnie O’Sullivan has set himself over the last 2 years and when he’s at his very best you would expect him to win all of these titles that I have mentioned, and as astounding achievement as all of this is I just wanted to look elsewhere when thinking of who I really thought was an outstanding performer in 2014.

1= Judd Trump (July) – Yes that’s right ladies and gentleman, my Player of the Year for 2014 is Judd Trump. Judd’s year really got going in February when he made the German Masters final, and that seemed like the moment when things turned around for Judd because he had really been struggling badly with his game in 2013 for the most part and he was finally returning to his best and this had taken a really large amount of hard work. What followed was the Championship League title in March, a World Championship quarter-final in April where he was very unlucky to lose out to a strong Neil Robertson, who he did manage to get his revenge on by winning the Australian Open title in July, his first ranking title for 20 months which is a long time for someone of Judd’s class. He continued his big performances by making the Paul Hunter Classic final and the Ruhr Open semi-final on the European Tour before losing out in both of the Champion of Champions and UK Championship finals where he was well ahead of the rest of the field, apart from Ronnie who is still just that bit better than the left hander, but Trump has made a lot of ground up on him this year, and that is exactly why Judd is my player of the year for the resurgence and improvement he has shown to battle and find his best form again, and then cash in on this in all events across the field. It is inevitable in my mind that 2015 will bring more big titles.

That is all from my player of the year countdown in 2014, well done to Judd Trump for winning that title, but also a big well done to the other 11 players that were selected by myself to make it onto this list. The question is now… which 12 players will be the ones to impress me most in 2015? Well there is a lot of snooker to be played before I decide that and I’m looking forward to every single minute of it.