Cue Sports Weekly: Judd Trump Downs the World Champion to Reach Another Shanghai Final, and Pune's Heyball Showdown Is Under Two Weeks Away

Shanghai delivered exactly the kind of match the draw promised. The world number one against the reigning world champion, first meeting of the new season, everything on the line. And on the heyball side, the countdown clock to India's biggest event of the year just got a lot shorter.

Let's get into it.

Judd Trump Beats the World Champion to Reach a Fifth Shanghai Final

Judd Trump's opening tournament of the 2026-27 season has gone about as well as it possibly could. He's into Sunday's Shanghai Masters final after a 10-6 semi-final win over Wu Yize, the reigning world champion and a player who'd beaten him in their two most recent meetings on tour.

It didn't start well for Trump. Wu opened with breaks of 61 and 53 to move 2-0 up early, looking every bit the player who'd denied Shaun Murphy 18-17 in May's World Championship final. But Trump found his rhythm before the mid-session interval with runs of 82 and 60 to level things, then pulled away with efforts of 56 and 61 to go 4-2 up. From there the gap only widened.

This is Trump's fifth Shanghai Masters final. Only Ronnie O'Sullivan, with six, has reached more. Getting here wasn't easy either — a 6-4 last-16 win over Barry Hawkins, then a genuinely brutal 6-0 whitewash of John Higgins in the quarters, restricting a player of Higgins' calibre to just 37 points across the entire match.

The other semi-final, Zhao Xintong against defending champion Kyren Wilson, plays out today. Whoever comes through faces Trump on Sunday for the title.

Pune Countdown: Less Than Two Weeks to Go

Twelve days out now. The 2026 WPA Heyball World Championships get underway in Pune on 12 August, and with the field now locked in — 128 players, 64 men and 64 women, drawn from all six WPA continental confederations — this is genuinely shaping up to be the biggest event on the heyball calendar this year.

If you're still getting your head around what actually separates heyball from the pool most club players grew up on, now's the time. We built an interactive Heyball vs 8-Ball comparison tool that breaks down the real differences — same 15-ball rack, same rules on paper, completely different game once you look at the table, the pockets, and the clock. Five minutes there will make Pune's broadcast a lot easier to follow.

And if you've ever found yourself mid-argument about what actually counts as a foul in heyball, or what a soft break gets you, we also built a proper Heyball Foul & Ball-in-Hand Explainer worth bookmarking before the tournament starts.

Drill of the Week: The Safety Escape

Discipline: Snooker Difficulty: Intermediate What it trains: Judging weight on a shot you're not trying to pot, and finding a genuine safety rather than just hoping for the best

Setup

Place a single red about a foot off the top cushion, roughly in the middle of the table. Set the cue ball down near the bottom cushion, far enough away that potting the red isn't realistically on.

The Task

Your job isn't to pot anything. Play a controlled safety that sends the cue ball back up table and leaves it tucked safely behind the red, out of your practice partner's (or your own next shot's) view. Ten attempts. Count how many actually leave you snookered or tight against the cushion, not just "somewhere near it."

Why It Works

Club players practice potting constantly and safety play barely at all, which is backwards given how many frames are actually won and lost on a well-timed safety rather than a spectacular pot. This drill isolates weight control specifically — too hard and you leave your opponent an easy escape, too soft and you don't get back to a safe position at all. It's an unglamorous drill. It's also one of the fastest ways to actually improve your frame-winning percentage rather than just your highlight reel.

Looking Ahead

Shanghai wraps up Sunday with Trump favourite to add another Masters title to his season. On the heyball side, all eyes are now firmly on Pune — we'll have full coverage once the tournament gets underway.

If you're running your own club night or local event in the meantime, our Tools section has grown a fair bit since we first mentioned it. The free draw maker is still there for generating a random bracket in seconds, and if a rules dispute comes up mid-frame — snooker or heyball — our two new foul explainers are built exactly for that: quick, accurate answers you can pull up on your phone before the argument drags on longer than the shot itself.