Match Reports from the 888.com World Snooker Championship
Ruthless Rocket
Ronnie O’Sullivan 8 – 1 Ding Junhui
Ronnie O’Sullivan made sure that Ding Junhui’s first taste of the Crucible was a bitter one with a superb display of clinical snooker.
All the pre-match build-up surrounded O’Sullivan’s comments about the draw, and the double world champion came out with all guns blazing.
The 31–year-old quickly gained the ascendancy with breaks of 50, 58 and 109 to go 3-0 up. Ding struggled under the pressure, and was forced to take on increasingly ambitious shots just to try to gain a foothold.
Whenever the 20-year-old rookie made a mistake, O’Sullivan punished him. The Rocket snatched the fourth and followed it up with two breaks over 60 to put him 5-0 clear.
Ding finally pulled a century out of nowhere in the sixth to get off the mark, but any confidence he accrued was instantly crushed when O’Sullivan stole the seventh on the final black.
Ding lost the eighth but was in among the balls in the final frame. He could only make 33, and O’Sullivan swooped to make it 8-1.
With O’Sullivan’s form anyone would have struggled, but Ding had chances to limit the damage. He let them slip away, and any hope he had of causing an upset went with them.
