Since winning his seventh World title in May 2022, Ronnie had never gone past the quarter-finals in any ranking event, but he will play Zhang Anda in the 2023 International Championship semi-final on Saturday, after he beat Ali Carter by 6-4 today in the quarter-finals stage.
Here are the scores:
Neither player was at his best and the highest break of the match was a mere 69. Watching it unfold, on replay, I had the feeling that the conditions were quite tricky.
On the other table, Zhang Anda continued to impress as he beat Ding Junhui by 6-3, scoring 5 breaks over 60, including a 124. Ding scored a break of 130 but I doubt that this will bring him much solace.
Earlier in the day, Jordan Brown had beaten Stephen Maguire and Tom Ford had beaten Barry Hawkins. It’s fair to say that, so far, this tournament has been a tale of the unexpected.
Ronnie O’Sullivan is through to the 89th ranking event semi-final of his career after a 6-4 win over Ali Carter at the International Championship in Tianjin.
Victory for O’Sullivan enhances his already dominant head-to-head record with Carter, which he now leads 17-1. However, he was made to work for it this evening against the typically tenacious Carter, who has been in good form this season and was runner-up to Judd Trump at the Wuhan Open.
World number one O’Sullivan was already safe in the knowledge that he will end this tournament on top of the rankings, despite having faced challenges from Trump, Mark Allen and Luca Brecel before their exits from the event. He is now just two wins away from the 40th ranking crown of his career and the first since winning the 2022 World Championship.
After going 1-0 down this evening, O’Sullivan responded by taking two on the bounce to claim the lead. A break of 60 saw O’Sullivan hold the advantage in the fourth, but Carter hit back with a brilliant 69 clearance to steal on the black and draw level at 2-2.
A break of 44 saw O’Sullivan reply by taking the fifth by a single point and he then added the sixth to go 4-2 ahead. Carter refused to wilt and took the next two frames to restore parity. He had chances to move ahead, but it was O’Sullivan who crafted breaks of 60 in consecutive frames to close the door and get over the line. Next up is a semi-final clash with Zhang Anda on Saturday.
“Each match I win nowadays is one of the best wins of my life, because I’m old. I’ve been around a long time,” said 47-year-old O’Sullivan.
“I’m not getting better and if anything I’m not the player I was. Players are all striving to achieve, young and hungry. It is harder now. Normally I would win tournaments quite easily and wouldn’t drop many frames even against the top players. It is tough now. I enjoy any win I get. Ali is one of the in form players this season. He is the in form player and I managed to beat him. So for me it is a great win.
“Every occasion is a good one when I play, so it doesn’t matter who I am against really. I’ve always had good crowds, every match I have played is a big one. People want to beat me and take me down. I’ve had to deal with that all of my life so I’ve never played a match which isn’t a big one.”
Zhang progressed with a 6-3 win over 14-time ranking event winner and Chinese compatriot Ding Junhui. That means Zhang is through to his second semi-final of the campaign, after a run to the final of the English Open where he was runner-up to Trump.
The result keeps Zhang’s hopes of automatic qualification for the MrQUK Championship alive, while world number 15 Ding will have to wait a bit longer for his place to be confirmed.
Northern Ireland’s Jordan Brown is through to the second ranking event semi-final of his career after a thrilling 6-5 defeat of Stephen Maguire.
Brown sensationally landed a maiden ranking title in 2021, by beating Ronnie O’Sullivan 9-8 in the 2021 Welsh Open final. It was a result which sent shockwaves through the snooker world, with Brown starting the event as a 750-1 outsider. However, he hasn’t been able to hit those heights since then, failing to go beyond the last 16 of ranking events in the aftermath.
The Antrim Ferrari has rediscovered his form this week and is now gearing up for one of the most important matches of his career tomorrow in the last four. He came into this afternoon’s quarter-final full of confidence after a stunning 6-3 win over Maguire’s Scottish compatriot and four-time World Champion John Higgins yesterday.
Brown led this afternoon’s tie 5-2, before Maguire came roaring back into contention. Breaks of 94, 77 and 115 saw him surge to three on the bounce and a deciding frame at 5-5. However, Brown composed a gutsy break of 57 which helped him to take the final frame and get over the line and earn a last four encounter with Tom Ford tomorrow.
Ford sealed his progression with a battling 6-4 win over European Masters champion Barry Hawkins. Leicester’s Ford hammered home breaks of 65, 125, 106 and 77 on his way to this afternoon’s victory. This will be the ninth ranking semi-final of his career.
Here is the last frame of Ronnie’s QFs match shared by ES on their YouTube channel
4 thoughts on “2023 International Championship – Ronnie reaches the SF stage with a 6-4 win over Ali Carter”
Apparently Ronnie has been told by the WST Nazis that he is under investigation and is likely to be fined for some of his recent comments, and his short-term response will be to not say much at all during his interviews for the time being.
As for the state of his game, my impression is that he isn’t making 50+ breaks at the same rate he used to, and so is being forced to rely on his “Plan B” of playing more safeties, not going for risky pots, and winning frames in bits and pieces.
The good news for him is that his Plan B is actually quite effective, and we’ve seen him “win ugly” with it in several big matches in recent years. The bad news is that he doesn’t enjoy playing that way, and it probably takes more out of him.
He seems willing to take the Plan B approach in only a few events per year, and the rest of the time he sticks to Plan A (which isn’t really good enough for him to win tournaments at the moment).
what are you on? he made 3 consecutive centuries the other day
He’s making centuries at a high rate this season, but his 50+ percentage is the lowest it has been since 2005-2006…
Well, it was a hard watch, when Carter stole for 2-2 when it should have been 3-1, I thought the curse of QFs strikes again. And I too was wondering about conditions, because top players don’t make so many mistakes, don’t run out of position that regularly. In any case I take the win and hope he will be better on Saturday. And hope Ronnie finds some good cheer, he was a lot more upbeat when he talked about wanting to have records, especially titles (as surprising as it was), while this talk about being old is a lot more somber.
As to good cheer: I’m certainly not happy about the other semi. I like Barry and Maguire and certainly hoped not to hear about Jordan Brown ever again. 😉
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Apparently Ronnie has been told by the WST Nazis that he is under investigation and is likely to be fined for some of his recent comments, and his short-term response will be to not say much at all during his interviews for the time being.
As for the state of his game, my impression is that he isn’t making 50+ breaks at the same rate he used to, and so is being forced to rely on his “Plan B” of playing more safeties, not going for risky pots, and winning frames in bits and pieces.
The good news for him is that his Plan B is actually quite effective, and we’ve seen him “win ugly” with it in several big matches in recent years. The bad news is that he doesn’t enjoy playing that way, and it probably takes more out of him.
He seems willing to take the Plan B approach in only a few events per year, and the rest of the time he sticks to Plan A (which isn’t really good enough for him to win tournaments at the moment).
what are you on? he made 3 consecutive centuries the other day
He’s making centuries at a high rate this season, but his 50+ percentage is the lowest it has been since 2005-2006…
Well, it was a hard watch, when Carter stole for 2-2 when it should have been 3-1, I thought the curse of QFs strikes again. And I too was wondering about conditions, because top players don’t make so many mistakes, don’t run out of position that regularly. In any case I take the win and hope he will be better on Saturday. And hope Ronnie finds some good cheer, he was a lot more upbeat when he talked about wanting to have records, especially titles (as surprising as it was), while this talk about being old is a lot more somber.
As to good cheer: I’m certainly not happy about the other semi. I like Barry and Maguire and certainly hoped not to hear about Jordan Brown ever again. 😉