Ronnie will face Ding Junhui in the Final of the 2023 UK Championship today at the Barbican in York. This is Ronnie’s 9th appearance in a UK Championship Final and he has won 7 of the 8 he’s played before. The task ahead for Ronnie isn’t easy though as Ding is a three times UK Champion himself and the man who beat him heavily in this tournament last season.

Here is how we got to this …

Afternoon session – Ronnie beat Hossein Vafaei by 6-2 (WST report)

O’Sullivan Through To Ninth UK Final

World number one Ronnie O’Sullivan scored a 6-2 win over Iran’s Hossein Vafaei to make the final of the MrQ UK Championship in York.

Tomorrow will see the Rocket take centre stage in the UK final once again, 30 years on from his maiden triumph. O’Sullivan famously won the 1993 UK Championship as a 17-year-old, becoming the youngest ever winner of a ranking event. Since then he has gone on to amass seven UK Championship wins and 39 ranking titles, both are record tallies.

O’Sullivan will take to the baize tomorrow in his ninth UK final. As well as in 1993, he’s lifted the famous trophy in 1997, 2001, 2007, 2014, 2018 and 2019. The only UK final he’s ever lost came in 2016 at the hands of Mark Selby.

O’Sullivan and Vafaei have a history against each other, after a war of words broke out ahead of their World Championship clash earlier this year. Tensions arose between the pair when O’Sullivan smashed the reds open from the break in a 5-0 win for Vafaei in 2022 German Masters. He returned the favour at the Crucible, but succumbed to a thumping 13-2 defeat at the hands of the Rocket, who had his retribution. After the match they appeared to have made up as they embraced walking out of the arena. Today saw O’Sullivan once again assert his authority in their rivalry.

Defeat for Vafaei ends his hopes of moving into the world’s top 16 and confirms that Jack Lisowski is safe in 16th position in the Race for the Masters. O’Sullivan will remain on top of the world rankings unless Judd Trump wins the event, he’s in action against Ding in this evening’s second semi-final.

Vafaei had the first chance in the opening frame, but failed to convert and O’Sullivan earned the advantage. A century run of 113 doubled O’Sullivan’s lead, before Vafaei responded with 112 to make it 2-1. The last before the interval went the way of the Iranian and they went in all-square at 2-2.

When play resumed, O’Sullivan took complete control of proceedings. Breaks of 60, 52, 50 and 90 saw him storm to four on the bounce and earn his place in the final.

“If he played like he did in the previous matches he probably would have beaten me today, but he missed a few balls and let me off the hook a few times,” said 47-year-old O’Sullivan.

“It is just survival. I think sometimes that is the difference with the chance of winning tournaments. If you can win when you aren’t playing your best you can win tournaments. I think that is what is happening with John Higgins, he isn’t winning when he’s having those bad matches. I think that is something we don’t really appreciate.

“I’m at that stage where I’m hanging around so people don’t get as good of a career. If I can beat Selby here and Judd there. I’m here to spoil there parties and ruin their CV!

“It was an amazing time (winning the 1993 UK Championship). The Preston Guild Hall, early in my career. It was an amazing venue and to win a tournament there. I played Steve Davis and then Stephen Hendry in the final. Beating my two heroes in the same tournament was weird. It was quite surreal and a good time.”

Vafaei said: “In front of my hero I don’t have that heart like I have with other people. I don’t know what is wrong with me but all of a sudden my body felt so heavy. I don’t know, I felt completely different. All of a sudden it was like somebody threw cold water on me. To be honest with you I had a good tournament. I started two weeks ago. It was a good run and it was only one man that could stop me, Ronnie O’Sullivan.”

Ronnie played better than he had all week so far yesterday. Here are the scores.

And some more images shared on social media by WST

As usual Eurosport shared some videos on YouTube:

Evening Session – Ding Junhui beat Judd Trump by 6-4

Ding Beats Trump In Classic Semi-Final

Ding Junhui is through to his fifth MrQ UK Championship final after an epic 6-4 semi-final defeat of Judd Trump in York.

The UK Championship has provided some of the greatest moments in Ding’s career so far. The Chinese legend burst to prominence in 2005, when he followed his China Open win up by beating Steve Davis in the UK final to claim maiden Triple Crown glory. He claimed the title in 2009 and 2019, beating Scotland’s John Higgins and Stephen Maguire respectively. Ding was runner-up last year to Mark Allen.

Tomorrow’s showpiece clash will be a meeting between snooker’s two biggest global superstars. It is the first final between 39-time ranking event winner O’Sullivan and 14-time ranking title holder Ding since the 2018 World Grand Prix, when the Rocket prevailed 10-3. However, Ding won their most recent meeting at last year’s UK Championship, storming to a 6-0 victory.

This evening’s tie saw Ding take down the player of the season so far. Trump captured three consecutive titles at the English Open, Wuhan Open and Northern Ireland Open and was runner-up at the recent Champion of Champions, but fell short of another final this week.

The first four frames were shared, before Trump burst into life with a fine break of 124 to take the lead at 3-2. Ding controlled the sixth to restore parity and a century run of 110 saw him lead 4-3. Trump hit back with 105 to draw level once more, but it was Ding who edged towards the finish line with a fine break of 88 to lead 5-4.

The tenth frame saw Trump have the first significant contribution, but just as he looked set to force a decider he missed an unexpected red to the middle on 31. Ding stepped up with a match winning 84 to secure his place in the final.

“I have the feeling here (in York) that I can play well. It started in 2005,” said 36-year-old Ding. “I’m happy to see myself get back into form like this. Normally I don’t fight like this in a tough match. I did well today, I said come on to myself and I keep running and running.”

“I needed to play my best because he has had an amazing start to the season. He is confident and has done well in many tournaments.You can’t see anyone not playing well in a semi-final.

“It is great to play Ronnie in the final. We haven’t had that many chances to face each other. The Chinese fans especially love to see it. I love to play against Ronnie. I want to play well and maybe win the match. This is what I dream of, he was my hero when I was a little boy.”

Trump said: “I don’t feel like I played particularly well in the whole tournament. I was just scraping through and relying on my opponent missing. Ding didn’t really miss anything easy throughout the whole game. I was making little mistakes and the balls just weren’t going perfect like they were in the first couple of games. It is little fine margins.”

Of course I want Ronnie to win today, but I will be happy no matter the result as long as both play well. I like Ding, he’s a beautiful player and what he achieved when he started playing in the UK as a shy teenager is badly underestimated. Neil Robertson has often spoken about how hard it was for him to expatriate, it still is hard actually. Yet, he spoke the language and the cultural shock he faced wasn’t that huge. He was lonely, but at least he was able to communicate and I’m sure that he never faced racist abuse or prejudices from random passer-byes because of the way he looks.

I first met Ding around 2006/2007 at the Premier League events. He didn’t speak much English at all, and didn’t really want to speak by fear of embarrassing himself. He kept himself to himself. He was terribly shy.

I found back this video on Youtube of Ding playing Hendry in the Premier League in 2007. The quality isn’t great unfortunately.

Those of you who are old enough will remember what happened at the 2007 Masters. It was awful. Ronnie helped Ding on that day. Comforting a distraught young man was much more important than winning the title. It sealed their friendship and made Ronnie a hero in China, but nothing of that was on Ronnie’s mind there and then. He had walked out of a match at the UK championship only the previous month because he couldn’t cope mentally and emotionally and was in deep trouble with the authorities. He saw his young opponent on the verge of a similar breakdown and wanted to help him. That particular moment remains one of Ronnie’s career highlights for me, the reason I became his fan and will always be even if he never wins a thing again.