Ronnie O’Sullivan is just two wins away from taking six titles in a single season for only the second time in his career, having crushed Ali Carter 10-2 in the quarter-finals of the Johnstone’s Paint Tour Championship in Manchester.
O’Sullivan has now won 19 of his 20 career meetings with Carter, and today’s battle was a one-sided affair as the Rocket dominated from the start. He goes through to face Gary Wilson or Zhang Anda in the semi-finals on Friday at 1pm and 7pm.
Carter had hoped to gain revenge for defeat in January’s Masters final, but his only highlight was a break of 141, the highest of the tournament so far, when he was already 7-0 down.
So far in 2023/24, O’Sullivan has won five tournaments, including the UK Championship and the Masters, and at the age of 48 he could be on his way to his best ever season. The only previous campaign in which he won six titles was back in 2000/01. He has also now been world number one for two years, his longest ever spell at the top of the rankings.
Breaks of 77, 87, 54, 51, 81 and 92 helped O’Sullivan take the first seven frames. Carter rallied to 7-2, but a missed red on 38 in frame ten ended his hopes of a fight-back, as runs of 62, 54 and 67 helped O’Sullivan win the last three frames.
Despite his trophy haul this season, O’Sullivan insists that he is not satisfied with his performances or technique. “I am having to accept how I play, and go with what I have got,” he told ITV. “That is life, you can’t be perfect all the time. Trying to be perfect is not ideal. I have to get my head around that because I have driven myself mad for the last two years.”
Asked about his mustard-coloured shirt, O’Sullivan added: “We have a lot of badges for different tournaments, I have used up every black shirt and this was the only one I had left in the wardrobe.“
O’SULLIVAN DOMINATES
Here are the scores … every frame except the second one featured a 50+ break … very poor indeed 🙄
2 thoughts on “2024 Tour Championship – Ronnie beats Ali Carter on Day 3”
It was very satisfying to see Ronnie beat Carter so profoundly, even if it was not the turbo-Ali of he previous afternoon. And the colour of the shirt has grown on me.
I certainly don’t think Ronnie played so much better when he lost all those finals, and the WGP SF against Ding was simply a breathtaking display of what he can do when on. But I’m certainly happy the losses did not discourage him as much as it feels that the losses in the finals contributed to Higgins’ thoughts of retirement.
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wahahaha right in Carter’s little face
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It was very satisfying to see Ronnie beat Carter so profoundly, even if it was not the turbo-Ali of he previous afternoon. And the colour of the shirt has grown on me.
I certainly don’t think Ronnie played so much better when he lost all those finals, and the WGP SF against Ding was simply a breathtaking display of what he can do when on. But I’m certainly happy the losses did not discourage him as much as it feels that the losses in the finals contributed to Higgins’ thoughts of retirement.
wahahaha right in Carter’s little face