Shaun Murphy will take on Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final of this year's Champion of Champions event in Coventry.
O'Sullivan was the first man into the final after beating Anthony Hamilton 6-2 in Friday night's semi-final. Hamilton got off to an unexpected start though winning the opening two frames on the colours to take a 2-0 lead and stun those that expected it to be a similar scoreline to O'Sullivan's quarter-final whitewash of John Higgins.
From there, O'Sullivan sparked into life though with breaks of 124 and 74 to make it 2-2 at the mid-session interval. Frame five proved to be a moment of history for the Rocket. He compiled a break of 109 to make it 3-2, but this was no ordinary century as he reached a landmark never before seen. The break was the 900th of O'Sullivan's professional career and has now sparked talk as to when (and if) he will make it to 1000 career centuries and what target he could set for the likes of Judd Trump and future generations to chase down.
O'Sullivan was now in total control and as he continued to reel frames off in no time, it was not too long before the match was all done. Runs of 52, 68 and 78 gave him the final three frames and what became a comfortable victory despite the shaky start.
Murphy came through on Saturday night in a much tougher match with Luca Brecel as he rattled off four frames in a row to complete victory from 4-2 down. The first two frames were shared, with Brecel making a run of 68 in the opener before Murphy took the second without reply. Murphy had a chance to clear up and steal the third frame but failure to clear the colours left a relieved Luca 2-1 in front, before a run of 80 then saw him take a 3-1 lead.
It was actually following the mid-session interval though that Murphy could have been a frame better off. After the match I received a message from Shaun where he explained that while the two players were waiting to be re-introduced by the MC, Murphy noticed Brecel did not have his cue with him and reminded him to quickly grab it. But for that intervention, Brecel would likely have entered the arena without it and been docked a frame under the rules for not being ready to start on time.
Despite that, Murphy did win the fifth frame anyway and close the gap to 2-3, but it did not take Brecel long in this free flowing contest to get his two frame lead back again. Breaks of 131 and 73 from Murphy followed in frames seven and eight as he levelled the match at 4-4 without Brecel scoring a single point in those two frames. Murphy also dominated the ninth to take the lead for the first time in the match at 5-4. Brecel had his chances in frame ten but said after the match he was gone towards the end and starting to feel quite tired, and Murphy won the tactical battle on the colours to book his place in the showpiece final.
The Final:
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Shaun Murphy
If both players play as well as they have been of late then this sets up to be a fantastic contest over the best-of-19 frames. It is fitting that these two would meet in the final of the event that effectively replaced the Premier League (when it was deemed there was no longer calendar space for it) as they played in two Premier League finals previously. Murphy won the 2009 Premier League with a 7-3 win over O'Sullivan, while the Rocket returned the favour the next year with a 7-1 triumph.
If you remove the Premier League and Championship League from the head-to-head though that leaves O'Sullivan with five wins from six against Murphy in ranking events. The most recent of those meetings came in this year's World Championship when Shaun fell 5-1 adrift before eventually losing 13-7. Murphy came back from 4-2 down to beat him 5-4 in the German Masters quarter-finals in 2015 which was a big win at the time, given O'Sullivan had thrashed him 13-3 in the World Championships the season before.
It is hard to build a case against O'Sullivan in this tournament. This is his fourth appearance in the Champion of Champions and also his fourth final, and he will seek title number three against Murphy. O'Sullivan has looked convincing again this week, scoring heavily as always and it will be a real challenge for Murphy to get the better of him.
Murphy is scoring very heavily himself and the key will be to get off to a good start, something he failed to do in some of their previous World Championship meetings. The Coventry Curse is history now with three good wins this week, particularly fighting back to beat Brecel who had already beaten Murphy twice this season, and seen off Trump and Selby this week.
A lot of people will look at O'Sullivan's form and the head to head and have his name on the trophy already, but do not underestimate what an in-form Shaun Murphy can do. This is already his third final of the season and after losing the previous two he will be determined to get his first trophy of the season and we all know that he can beat anyone on his day when his long potting is in good shape and he is scoring heavily.
You can watch all the action unfold on ITV4 in the UK to see who comes out on top between Shaun Murphy and Ronnie O'Sullivan over the best-of-19 frames.
No comments:
Post a Comment