Lee nervous ahead of Trump test

Lee lost in the first round at the Crucible in 2008

Stephen Lee has described his World Championship qualifying clash with Judd Trump as the biggest game of his life.

The pair meet in the final qualifying round on Monday with a place in the Crucible tournament up for grabs.

"I'm a bit nervous to be fair," Lee, who reached the 2003 World Championship semi-finals, told BBC Radio Wiltshire.

"It's probably the biggest game of my life at the moment. I've been putting the work in, but I just don't know when the form's going to turn up."

Lee has struggled recently and has dropped out of the world's top 16, but he did beat 19-year-old Trump at the Northern Ireland Trophy earlier in the season en-route to the quarter-finals.

After reaching the Masters final in 2008 he has slipped down the rankings, is now playing only intermittently and finding it difficult to transfer form on the practice table to the competition table.

"It's really hard to actually get any momentum," he added.

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"You need momentum, you need confidence and you need to have tournaments quick flowing.

"If you've got problem you can work it out the next week and put it right, but we have to sit and twiddle our thumbs and wait for the next opportunity and that's frustrating."

Trump, who has described reaching the World Championships as "massive", became the youngest player for 14 years to qualify for the competition in 2007, but last year lost 10-9 to Joe Swail in the final round of qualifying having been 9-7 up.

Swail went on to beat Lee 10-4 in the first round of the tournament proper last year.