Ronnie O’Sullivan compelled to cancel flight out of UK as snooker star ‘uncovered’
Ronnie O’Sullivan was forced to cancel his flight out of the UK as the seven-time champion was knocked out of the World Snooker Championship by John Higgins
Ronnie O’Sullivan was beaten by John Higgins in a final frame decider(Image: George Wood, Getty Images)
Ronnie O’Sullivan was so certain that John Higgins would find him out he had already booked a flight home. O’Sullivan’s hopes of a record eighth World Championship went up in smoke as Higgins battled back from 9-4 behind to knock him out in a thrilling final-frame thriller.
‘The Rocket’ twice held a five-frame advantage but dropped six on the bounce across the closing two sessions, with Higgins rattling in three centuries on Monday before keeping his cool to cross the finish line in the decider and seal a stunning 13-12 victory.
Following the loss, O’Sullivan confessed: “I’ve got to be honest with you, I had a flight booked home early this morning because I wasn’t sure if I’d get to the third session before the match started.
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“I was realistic about my chances, John’s strong, playing well, won tournaments the last couple of years. I haven’t been in any big matches really for two years. These games, I know it’s a different level.
“It’s alright beating people in the last 64, last 32, whatever, ranked 30th or 40th in the world. But playing the top boys under a real pressure situation, I knew it was going to kind of expose me in some sort of way.
“I was really shocked that I was able to make a game of it, to be honest with you. Literally, when I was 6-2 up at the first session, I said to my mate: ‘I can’t work this one out.’ I felt like I played okay. 9-7 up, I thought, okay, cool, two sessions. One you can get a bit flukey.
“It’s a little bit of new territory for me again, but John played great. I tried to hang on to him. I just couldn’t get the job done. I’ll go back to Ireland, just chill there and then come back whenever I’ve got to play again.”
O’Sullivan allowed matters to slip away during a six-frame collapse across Sunday and Monday when he tumbled from 9-4 ahead to 10-9 behind. He struck the table in the final frame of the middle session following a miss but remarked: “I wasn’t even angry. I was quite frustrated. I thought: ‘I missed another bloody important ball. How many of these am I going to keep missing?’ It was a nice sort of anger.
“In the last round I thought, rather than do the hands, do it with the cue. I missed the tough ball, it was just nice just to go bang. Then within a second, it’s deleted and I’m cool as a cucumber really. I like to just get it out and it’s just done, drawn a line under it, just move forward.”
And while O’Sullivan won’t claim an eighth title, he hopes Higgins can secure a fifth crown as he remarked: “I think it’d be nice for him because I always said if you get beat in the quarters, it’s not too bad because you’ve had a good workout, just over a week.
“But if you get beat in the semis or the final here then I’d rather get beat first round because truth be known, no-one really cares who gets beat in the final or the semi-finals. If you get to the semis you’ve had to do 15 days, it’s a long old slog. If you get to the final you’ve done 17 days.
“That’s the worst experience for any snooker player, especially something like in a John and mine situation, so it’d be nice for John to go all the way but it’s going to be tough.”
