Ronnie O'Sullivan and Kyren Wilson will be the two players going for the Steve Davis trophy and title of English Open champion in Sunday's finale.
Wilson was the first man over the line in the semi-finals as he saw off hot prospect Alexander Ursenbacher on Saturday afternoon. The Swiss player put on another good show in the early stages of the match though, taking a 2-0 thanks to early breaks of 64 and 84 and also moving his frame winning tally to 11 a row, after winning the last four against Shaun Murphy and whitewashing Michael White. However, Wilson hit back strongly with a cool break of 77 to put his first frame on the board, before winning an important fourth frame to level the contest.
Following the mid-session interval, Ursenbacher came straight out with a contribution of 89 to win the fifth in one visit and regain the lead, but as it turned out this would be the last frame he would win in the tournament. From there, Wilson really stepped up a gear winning three of the final four frames in one visit. That started with a match high break of 124 to square the match at 3-3 and was quickly followed by a run of 75 to take the lead for the first time. A run of 56 assisted him in moving one away from victory at 5-3 before he swiftly booked his place in the final with a break of 90 as Ursenbacher only scored 11 points after moving 3-2 ahead, showing that he was shut-out by the Warrior.
In the evening session it was over to O'Sullivan, though his victory over Anthony McGill was not as easy as it looked like being at one stage. The Rocket was out of the blocks quickly, while McGill was slow in getting going as he missed a couple of chances in the opening frames. Runs of 52, 62 and 77 from O'Sullivan saw him surge into a 3-0 lead, and given McGill's comments after his match on Friday that he would "probably lose" to O'Sullivan it looked like being over quickly.
Even when the Scotsman compiled a very classy 57 to send him into the mid-session break with a frame on the board, the five times World Champion came straight back out with a sublime total clearance of 139 to regain his three frames cushion. All of a sudden though, O'Sullivan perhaps took his foot off of the gas a little and McGill started to come back into the match taking the sixth frame and then making a 77 in the seventh to close to within one at 3-4. The eighth frame was probably the eventual undoing of McGill in the end though as his break of 61 saw him fall short of a frame winning clearance and a big steal, as he missed frame ball brown and O'Sullivan cleared the four remaining colours to breathe a sigh of relief and move a frame from the final at 5-3. The Scotsman was not going away though and his run of 71 prolonged the match, but winning all of the last three frames proved too big an ask when O'Sullivan made his second total clearance of the night, a 133 this time, to clinch victory.
Semi-Final Results:
Ronnie O'Sullivan 6-4 Anthony McGill
Kyren Wilson 6-3 Alexander Ursenbacher
The Final: (Best-of-17 Frames)
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Kyren Wilson
In terms of the head to head record between O'Sullivan and Wilson there is not much to go on, as they have only met on one previous occasion. That came in last season's Northern Irish Open when Wilson was a 4-3 winner despite seeing O'Sullivan come from 3-0 down to force a deciding frame with three successive centuries.
Wilson knows how to stand up to Ronnie but that is a much harder task over a longer format match. Both players are playing great snooker, with Wilson getting to the final of the World Open a few weeks ago before losing to Ding and he will be looking to put on a better show this time to take the trophy. O'Sullivan has had some good tests this week beating John Higgins and an in-form Jack Lisowski before his win over McGill and in the six matches to reach this stage he has made eight centuries showing that his scoring is as good as ever.
Wilson survived a scare in the opening round as he came through a decider against Rod Lawler but overall he has only dropped ten frames in reaching the final, two less than O'Sullivan, as well as making six centuries of his own to show that his scoring is certainly good enough to compete with O'Sullivan.
I think O'Sullivan has quite a bit of respect for Wilson from comments he has made about him previously and he knows that he is in for a good battle in this final. While he did of course win the Masters in January, O'Sullivan has not won a full ranking event since the Welsh Open in February 2016, and in all he has lost four of his last five big finals with January's Masters win over Joe Perry being mixed with losses in finals of: the Hong Kong Masters to Neil Robertson, the UK Championship to Mark Selby, the Champion of Champions to John Higgins and the European Masters to Judd Trump.
That perhaps makes a good case for Wilson who will be in his fourth ranking overall with his only win being the first of those in the 2015 Shanghai Masters against Judd Trump. When everything is weighed up it promises to be a really close contest with perhaps just a couple of frames separating winner from loser when all is said and done.
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