JUDD TRUMP will be hoping he has a better night’s shut-eye before his UK Championship quarter-final.

The 11th seed, who won the tournament at the York Barbican three years ago with a self-confessed brand of ‘naughty snooker’, admitted he struggled for sleep before his 6-3 win over Rod Lawler.

“I was a little bit tired,” he said. “I wasn’t 100 per cent so I am pleased to get through. It just happens now and again. You can’t sleep 100 per cent every day - there are always going to be off-days.

“It’s nothing I could do (anything about). I went out there and tried my best. I wasn’t fully firing.”

He began in fabulous fashion, a break of 102 clinching the first frame, but he was quickly bogged down by Lawler’s deliberate style of play.

A 53, in the second, would be his highest break until the 112 he later made to clinch the match, as Lawyer took advantage of an error-prone Trump to take a 2-1 lead.

Trump quickly levelled but was having to scrap for every point as he managed to grab a two frame lead at 4-2.

Lawler dug in, took the next, and should have levelled the match in the eighth only to let the former UK champion off the hook.

In a match that lasted just short of four and a half hours, Trump, who will now play Mark Davis in tomorrow’s quarter-final, said he showed “patience” and “maturity” to get past the tricky Liverpudlian.

He added: “It was a different game, and a hard game, but I enjoyed it. Everyone is a different player and, for me, it is important to beat these types of players and keep improving.

“You have got to adapt your style.”

“Rod is a solid player and I knew for anyone to come back against (Mark) Allen - you are going to be a really tough player and he showed it and never went away,” Trump continued.

“He struggled at the start and when he got going he potted all these long balls and put me under a lot of pressure.

“I tried to show patience. Obviously, I didn’t play 100 per cent - I struggled out there - but Rod made it really tough for me.

“For me, Rod is enjoyable now. I enjoy plain him because you have got to show maturity to your game. I don’t think I used to have that.

“You have to stay patient and, for me, he is a completely different challenge. It’s easy for me to just go out and blow people off the table but when you’ve got to win a tournament by coming through the tough way - and playing different players - that feels like more of an achievement than going and just making breaks.”

Lawler, who had beaten Mark Allen on the way to the last 16, said it had been “no disgrace” to fall to Trump.

He said: “Judd won a couple of the close frames, which put him a couple in front at the end. It wasn’t a a great match but it was hard fought by both of us.

“I am really happy with the tournament, just because I lost to Judd is no disgrace. I gave it everything I had and I just came up short but it has been a great tournament.

“If they were all as good as this I would be happy.”