Lyu Downs Rocket But O’Sullivan Stays At Summit
China’s Lyu Haotian stunned seven-time World Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan with a surprise 5-1 victory at the inaugural Wuhan Open, but results elsewhere mean the Rocket is set to remain world number one for now.
O’Sullivan knew if Mark Allen won this week’s event he would be usurped at the summit of the world rankings. However, Allen bowed out this evening against Ali Carter.
It’s the first time in four years that O’Sullivan has lost a match on Chinese soil. His last defeat came at the hands of Dominic Dale in the first round of the 2019 World Open in Yushan. Lyu is now through to the semis of a ranking event for the fifth time in his career, where he will face Carter, but he is still searching for a maiden title.
Lyu took a tight first two frames this evening on the colours, before breaks of 76 and 66 saw him head into the mid-session with a 4-0 advantage. When they returned, a stunning break of 101 from O’Sullivan kept him in contention. However, Lyu took the sixth to run out a 5-1 victor.
Afterwards O’Sullivan admitted that he wasn’t too worried by the prospect of Allen overtaking him at the top of the world rankings, even though the Pistol’s eventual loss did mean he’d stay on top.
“When I first got to number one I couldn’t believe it. When you’ve held it for a few years, you don’t get seduced by victories, World Championships or being the world number one. When I was younger I wanted it. When you get it you become used to it and it is normal. It is a shame really, because you lose that hunger and desire. There is nothing left for me to achieve in snooker. I wish there was something for me to go for. I’ve achieved more than I could ever imagine and more than any other snooker player on the planet,” said 39-time ranking event winner O’Sullivan.
“Lyu played very well. He didn’t miss much, scored well, played good safety and potted some good pressure balls. Credit where it is due. I could have played a bit better, but I didn’t do a lot wrong.”
I think that this is a very honest assessment by Ronnie. He hasn’t got past the QFs in any ranking event since winning his 7th World Title, but he has won three prestigious invitational events. He finds it hard to motivate himself for “normal” events, as he admits in this interview. He’s going to turn 48 in a few weeks, he has won everything, he has nothing to prove, but he still loves playing and competing.
Csilla on facebook branded Ronnie’s display today “disgusting”. I disagree, he wasn’t at his best but as himself stated, he didn’t do a lot wrong either and, believe me, Ronnie tends to be quite harsh on himself. Today, he wasn’t at his best, obviously. He didn’t have much run either except at the start of the only frame he won. But he tried, he came back at the table at the end of the fourth frame, without hope to win it but in an attempt to find some feel of the table and some rhythm. That’s not the attitude of someone who doesn’t care and throws the match.
Here are the scores:
As you can see most frames were close. Not much worked for Ronnie before the MSI. In general, he wasn’t playing as well as he can when on form, and Lyu took advantage, as he should.
Lyu actually played very well. I hope he goes on to win a tournament, this one or another in the future. He was an exceptional junior but his debuts in the main tour were extremely traumatic. He actually quit snooker for a while. He’s a very talented player, with limitations because of his physique: he is frail and rather short. His break-building skills are excellent, and his temperament is good. He’s clever and positive in his approach to the game. I always liked him since I first saw him play close up in Yixing some 11 years ago.
Here are the videos shared by ES on their YouTube channel:
Ranking wise, this week has improved Ronnie’s position significantly. He will stay number one, because Mark Allen also lost today. In the provisional snooker.org end of season rankings he’s currently 19th, but would climb to 17th if he wins his opening match at the International Championship. Similarly, he’s currently 36th in the race to the World Grand Prix, but a win in the first round of the International Championship would see him climb to 24th, well inside the qualifying bracket. The most important factor here is for him to avoid further injuries.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
“…There is nothing left for me to achieve in snooker….”
(Snooker is just a thing : )))
RO’S’s trophies: 79; (it’s just a silver medal)…and:
Seb. Loeb: 80; Sam Snead/ TW: 82; Steve Davis: 84(!); VR46_king class: 89;…etc.
Numbers of Sport Heroes : )))
Ok.
But i.m.o. are truly options:
– first 8th Triple Crown trophy…in the modern era…whichever…for you Sir, just a step with flow.
– and a very cool performance is ‘race in race’ position,…the first who achieve all triple crown maximum!
/Candidates: (Stephen); Ronnie; John; Neil; Kyren; Mark; (…and Ding)/
No lament, rather impulse.
Well, Sorry Mr LivingLegend, i agree (99,9%), but Masters 147 very miss from the CV…!
((((crossfingers))))
I actually believe Ronnie’s had a rather good start to the season. From thirteen matches he has won 11 (probably the best stats of any player) winning one very prestigious event, he has already had 16 century breaks and he has shown stamina several times coming back from behind. The performances against both Yuan Sijun and Jackson Page were outstanding. Also, he won several frames out of nowhere from well behind, notably against Mark Selby, John Higgins and yesterday against Yuan Sijun.
What is also true is that in the ranking events in which Ronnie has to play seven matches in seven days to win the tournament, Ronnie hasn’t been consistent enough so far. There is always one day against a good opponent on which he doesn’t manage to up his game und get the crucial shots when needed. At the same time the opponents have been very good, notably Zhang Anda who went on to play in the finals and should have won the tournament.
With patience I think results will come.
Yes, Ronnie’s performance wasn’t ‘disgusting’ – he lost 3 frames on the pink and was a little unlucky. The shots he did miss turned out to be very costly. He has won matches playing like this before, when his opponent didn’t capitalise.
Lyu Haotian clearly loved playing on that table, which was very suitable for his style. The start of the match was always going to be crucial. Yesterday, WST’s report and tweets gave no mention of his win against Zhang Anda. The other players’ wins were covered, with photos and some interviews. Perhaps they thought today’s match was a foregone conclusion?
I managed to find an interview on Weibo after Lyu’s win against Wakelin, where he said that he was very happy to be playing in China, although he was suffering from a cold. Lyu didn’t play in Shanghai, Huangguoshu or Xi’an, so it is indeed 4 years since his last match in his country.
Wu Yize was similarly brilliant, after going 3-1 behind. His break in the last frame was magnificent. Hill has also been impressive this week.
Allen’s loss was a little unexpected, but he hasn’t been at his best. The Trump-Ford match was entirely predictable.
One potential issue is that if Trump wins this tournament, then some might claim that there’s no problem with the schedule…
I don’t agree with you today, Monique, but more with Csilla. Ronnie doesn’t look too confident and comfortable out there at the moment. It seems that he isn’t able to manufacture breaks out of nowhere anymore, probably because he can’t play certain shots with his injured elbow. He should possibly get surgery, but he also should probably change his chalk brand and we all know how this story goes so far. Furthermore he could do with a bit of Dr Steve Peters again, as he now is in a completely different phase compared to when they started working together and has got an injury, so I can imagine Peters would be able to give him a lot of new input there. And hopefully he doesn’t think that working with Steve Feeney is useless with having an injury and is not interested in this anymore.
Csilla on facebook said that Ronnie didn’t try and didn’t care. That’s definitely NOT true, it’s a projection of her own disappointment. Ronnie is not at his best and lacks consistence, I agree, and it’s probably related to the ongoing injuries and therefore reduced practice, plus his confidence can’t be high due to lack of results . But what annoys me is that whenever Ronnie loses, it is because he didn’t try. That not the case and it’s utterly unfair to his opponents. Lyu played really well yesterday and that’s why he won, not because Ronnie let him.
Well, I’m not sure. He seems to still act self sabotaging sometimes. Also like in that way that he apparently refused to take normal painkillers for some time. And maybe that is what Csilla feels as well. He just shouldn’t play in pain.
He was struggling and tried to make things happen but there was no self-sabotage. As for the painkillers, I totally relate with what he does. If you take them all the time, you get accustomed to it and you’ll need more and more of them as they become less efficient. I’m afraid that, at some point, the only solution will be surgery, which would take probably him out of the game for about 6 months. I understand why he’s trying to avoid that as with the current ranking system it would cause a major problem, but … clearly, as it is now, it’s going nowhere towards a long term healing.
It would be self-sabotaging if he would avoid surgery just because of the ranking system, like if he was just avoiding it for minor reasons, for example because he could fall to, let’s say 10th or so and then maybe would have to play qualifiers for Chinese events like Lewis said and then he thinks he would miss out on these, because he wouldn’t play the qualifiers.
I’m not sure about that Christian because, other than several months of forced inactivity, there are long time risks associated with this type of surgery, notably loss of strength in the forearm and decreased range of motion in the elbow. Obviously, this is worth thinking about if you are a snooker player. It’s about weighting benefits and risks, and only Ronnie’s doctor is in a position to evaluate that with him in order to take the best decision.
I agree on all of this. And I’m sure Ronnie seems not too confident because of this actual situation you described as well. So of course if he still enjoys playing even with that injury, I’m happy for him. But still I hope to hear of a bit of Peters or Feeney in the news in the future, he needs a bit support I guess.