Ronnie O'Sullivan won the Champion of Champions event in Coventry last night after he beat Stuart Bingham 10-8 in the final at the Ricoh Arena, which has been a very good host for the event I should add.
Here's what happened in the final:
Ronnie O'Sullivan 10-8 Stuart Bingham - It was Stuart Bingham that started brightest in the final, and he played well throughout, making a break of 109 to kick the match off in style. Ronnie hit back immediately though with a break of 66 helping him square the contest. The Rocket soon went ahead, a break of 55 helping him on the way to a 2-1 lead. Bingham needed to stick with O'Sullivan and to start with he did so very well, taking a scrappier fourth frame to level the match again at 2-2 going into the mid-session interval of the first session. It was Stuart that came out from the break the stronger of the 2 players, as a run of 72 put him ahead again, and that lead was soon doubled when he knocked in a 52 to go 4-2 up. All of a sudden it was Ronnie who wasn't playing his best snooker in the opening session and needed to stick with Bingham. O'Sullivan just about managed to do so, a break of 76 making it 4-3. However, Bingham was soon 2 frames in front again with a nice century break of 109 to make it 5-3, and guarantee that Bingham would be in front at the start of the final session. Although, Ronnie ended the session brightly and insured that he would only be 1 behind with a break of 130 to make it 5-4. Stuart probably could've been slightly annoyed that he wasn't further ahead after the opening session, with Ronnie nowhere near his best, and Bingham actually playing very well himself.
The second session started much better for O'Sullivan as he squared the match with a break of 93 at 5-5. All of a sudden a clearance of 32 from Ronnie put him 6-5 in front, and Bingham had still done very little wrong. However, Ball-run kept himself in the game, equalising with a break of 48, before he took a pretty scrappy frame before the interval of the final session to lead the match 7-6. O'Sullivan was never down in the match for long though, and levelled this tight contest once again with a break of 62. The pendulum swung Ronnie's way again in the fifteenth frame, as a break of 96 made it 8-7 to O'Sullivan. Just when you thought that Ronnie was going to start running away with the contest, the last Premier League champion had a run of 66 to square the match once again at 8-8. Then it became a test of nerve for both players, and it looked like Bingham was just beginning to feel the pressure a little bit more. It showed in the seventeenth frame as both players had chances to score, but it turned out that an early 46 from the Rocket was the telling contribution of the frame, putting him 1 frame away from the title at 9-8. As you would expect from a natural front runner, there was no shying away from O'Sullivan as breaks of 33 and 49 helped him take the frame that he needed to seal the match, and take the £100,000 winners cheque.
Overall, it was an absolutely brilliant tournament that had a lot of classic matches throughout, and I hope to see this event on the calendar for many years to come. As for the coverage, ITV4 did a magnificent job once again, covering the event very well with great commentary and analysis from Clive Everton, Alan McManus and Neal Foulds. In fact I would like to see the ITV take on a lot more tournaments that are not currently covered on terrestrial TV, and if the BBC don't step up their own coverage, I would be quite happy to see some of their tournaments move to ITV4. With the UK Championship's on BBC from Saturday (with the tournament itself starting tomorrow) it will be a good comparison between their coverage, and the coverage ITV4 have given this week.
As for me, hopefully I will be able to preview the UK Championship in full ready for the start again, and i will be writing a second/updated preview ahead of the TV stages starting on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment