Judd Trump v Mark Selby: Preview of Sunday's 2025 UK Snooker Championship final, stats, head-to-head

Both players are aiming to complete a hat-trick of crowns at professional snooker's second-most prestigious ranking event. Selby’s triumphs came in 2012 and 2016, Trump’s glories arrived in 2011 and 2024.

Reigning champion Trump is trying to become only the second player this century to claim consecutive UK titles. Ronnie O’Sullivan went back-to-back in 2017 and 2018.

Along with O’Sullivan, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry are the only other players to have successfully defended the accolade. Trump can join that exclusive club, and for the first time in his career retain a Triple Crown title.

The current world number one began his campaign in the opening session of the televised stages defeating 2004 title winner Stephen Maguire 6-4 before eliminating number 16 seed Si Jiahui 6-3 in the last 16.

From 2-0 down Trump strung together six frames to see off three-time champion Ding Junhui 6-2 in the last eight, and raised his game with four-in-a-row at the end of his 6-3 semi-final success over another three-time UK winner, Neil Robertson.

‘The Ace in the Pack’ has yet to win a professional title in 2025, and this is his last opportunity to preserve and extend a proud record of having lifted at least one trophy every calendar year since 2014. The last time Trump stood on the top step of the podium was here, last year.

Despite this wait, Trump is appearing in his third final in just a matter of weeks; he narrowly missed out on gold at October’s Northern Ireland Open, and November’s Champion of Champions. But since those final losses, the 30-time ranking event winner has reunited with cue - ending his experiment with a new one - and is looking like himself again.

The 36-year-old is going for a sixth Triple Crown title, and will be appearing in his fifth UK final. A victory means he would be the 12th different winner from as many events in this incredible season.

Four-time world champion Selby would move to 10 Triple Crown titles with glory on Sunday, and cement his place as one of snooker’s all-time greats. Only three players in the modern era have reached double figures before - O’Sullivan (23), Hendry (18), Davis (15). The last time Selby triumphed at one of snooker’s big three was the 2021 World Championship, and his last final was at the Crucible two years later.

The 24-time ranking event winner arrived in York several days ago feeling great about his game having recently won a maiden Champion of Champions crown on home soil in Leicester - his last outing on the professional circuit.

Selby has dropped just nine frames in four matches en route to the Barbican showpiece. He registered 6-2 wins over Lei Peifan, Zhou Yuelong, and Barry Hawkins, before fashioning two frames of very high quality to deny Shaun Murphy 6-3 in the last four on Saturday night after his opponent reduced the gap to one from 4-1 down.

‘The Jester from Leicester’ is seeking his fourth title of 2025 with victories at the Championship League Invitational, Welsh Open, and the aforementioned Champion of Champions already in the book. Recently, Selby said that he has ‘found something’ in his game and it certainly looks that way with the brilliant run of form and results he is having.

Trump versus Selby head-to-head record in competition

The career head-to-head record between Trump and Selby is interesting. Whether you include short-format matches such as the Championship League or not, Trump leads both lists, although Selby has won their last two encounters, both coming this season.

They met just a few weeks ago in the Champion of Champions final where Selby pieced together five successive frames from 5-5 for a 10-5 win, finishing in supreme style with century breaks in each of the last three frames.

That was the first time they'd played each other in a tournament-deciding final in over 14 years - now it's two in only a few weeks. The final in 2011 came at the China Open in Beijing when Trump made his big career breakthrough with a 10-8 verdict to secure his maiden ranking event crown.

Their only other multi-session encounter was a 9-4 win for Trump in the 2019 International Championship semi-finals.

Interestingly, they've only faced each other twice before at a Triple Crown event with Trump getting a 6-2 quarter-final win at the 2019 Masters, and a 6-3 win here in the quarter-finals of the 2023 UK Championship.

Sunday’s final is the best of 19 frames across two sessions starting at 13:00GMT and 19:00GMT. The winner collects £250,000.

To view the full draw, results, match schedule, and other information from the 2025 UK Championship, visit here.