Another Bad Day For Ronnie
Ronnie O’Sullivan crashed out of the China Open in Beijing, losing for the second time in a month to Ryan Day by five-frames-to-two.
Welshman, Day opened his account in style with a century break in the first frame.
The Rocket, making his first appearance at a ranking event in China since winning the Shanghai Masters 18-months ago responded by taking the second with two scoring visits and took the lead in the next with a 123 break of his own.
At the interval it was all-square again after Day took the fourth in one visit with a 78 break.
By his high standards the past twelve months have been pretty disastrous, but throughout that period, O’Sullivan has continually looked close to finding his top form.
However, close is not good enough for the enigmatic three-time world champion, and his opponents are starting to see the tell-tale signs of weakness and Day is one that has learnt to exploit it.
After the interval, it was O’Sullivan who looked set to move ahead once again, but a ‘school-boy’ error was his undoing.
With the balls awkwardly placed when he came to the table, O’Sullivan with a series of four subtly brilliant shots had the frame at his mercy. He chose to take a red to the yellow pocket that afforded position on the black instead of playing a more straight forward red that would require him to take the cue ball down the table for the blue.
He missed the red and allowed Day back in. The three-times ranking finalist almost blew his chance by missing the last red but eventually potted green to black to win what turned a match-changing frame.
Day went moved within frame of victory without O’Sullivan troubling the scorer, and the match would be over less than 20-minuts later after Day had got the better of a scrappy safety battle.
Beating Ronnie for the second tournament major ranking event in succession confirms Day’s return to somewhere near his best form and will give him a confidence boost ahead of his Crucible showdown with fellow countryman, Mark Willams in a fortnight’s time.
He will now face Williams’ conqueror Stephen Lee for a place in the last eight.
Elsewhere, Robert Milkins and Ricky Walden produced big comebacks to book their place in the last 16.
Milkins trailed Jamie Cope by three-frames-to-one but returned after the interval to win four frames in 45-minutes including making a 142 total clearance, the tournament’s highest break so far.
Walden trailed PTC finalist, Gould by four-frames-to-two and by 44-0 in the next.
Somehow, the world number 15 managed to steal the frame on the black before forcing a decider with a 69 break in the eighth.
The Flintshire-based player will be delighted to have pulled off the win and keep alive his hopes of ending the season among the game’s elite for the first time.
He will now face world number one, John Higgins for a place in the quarter-finals after the Scot survived a bit of a scare against ‘Shoot-Out’ King, Nigel Bond.
Higgins eventually won 5-3 after trailing the veteran 3-2 who made a superb 138 in frame three.
There were also wins for Peter Ebdon, Allister Carter, Judd Trump and Mark Selby.
