First of all thank you so much to everyone for the nice words shared in comments yesterday as this blog celebrated its 10th anniversary. Thank you 💖 !
Back to the baize… here is what happened in Jeddah yesterday. I’m not really able to comment as I didn’t watch anything yet. Family visiting gets priority…
Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters Day Six: Rocket Completes Huge Fight-Back
Ronnie O’Sullivan pulled off a sensational come-back from 5-2 down to beat surprise package Chang Bingyu 6-5 and set up a Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters quarter-final with Kyren Wilson.
World number 104 Chang, playing in the last 16 of a ranking event for the first time, threatened a huge upset when he led 5-2, but O’Sullivan found another gear and played superbly over the last four frames to keep alive his hopes of a first title in 17 months. Cheered on by local fans, the seven-time World Champion faces an intriguing clash on Thursday night with Wilson, a player he has recently described as the best in the world on current form.
Breaks of 57, 68, 80, 64 and 66 helped China’s 23-year-old Chang establish a 5-2 advantage, as O’Sullivan made several unforced errors though he did compile runs of 84 and 85 in the two frames he won. The 49-year-old then made a 103 for 5-3 and dominated frame nine to draw within one.
Chang had his best match-winning chance in the tenth, but leading 53-37 he missed a tricky pot on the penultimate red to a top corner. O’Sullivan potted the red, leaving the cue ball on a side cushion, then played the shot of the tournament so far to cut in the pink and gain position on the last red. He cleared the table for 5-5 then, typically, made a 125 in the decider.
“I have realised now I took this game for granted before because when I was struggling I lost my confidence and lost my swagger and that’s something you can’t fake,” said world number five O’Sullivan, into his 148th ranking quarter-final. “I had it for such a long time without even realising it. Tonight I got it back in spells and remembered I used to feel like that a lot. That’s what made me win so much. I just don’t have that enough now. I wish I could turn the clock back and appreciate it more. These days I am twitching shots and throwing fast ones in, I feel like a numpty. I did feel good in spells tonight but I missed easy balls, my arm doesn’t get through the ball like it used to.”
World number two Wilson has won seven out of seven matches so far this season and tonight beat Si Jiahui 6-3. Earlier this month he landed the Shanghai Masters crown, beating O’Sullivan 6-3 in the quarter-finals, and the Kettering cueman has won the last three meetings between the pair, a sequence he will hope to extend this week. Breaks of 70, 70, 67, 77 and 73 helped the 2024 World Champion to a comfortable win tonight.
Chris Wakelin, who knocked Neil Robertson and Mark Allen out of the World Championship this year, took another big scalp with a 6-5 success over Crucible king Zhao Xintong. World number 16 Wakelin took a 3-1 lead with a top break of 106 then lost four frames in a row, but battled back to win the last three.
“I believe in myself,” said Wakelin. “If I can go deep this week it would cement my top 16 place. Even if I won this tournament, I don’t think people would see me as a top player. But if I can consistently prove it to myself I don’t care what anyone else thinks. At the Crucible I ran out of steam in the quarter-finals, I was mentally exhausted. My goal this season was to get fitter so I have been doing more running and that’s going well so far.”
He will now meet Barry Hawkins who also enjoyed an impressive fight-back, recovering a 5-3 deficit to beat Ding Junhui 6-5. Hawkins made 99 and 84 for 5-5 then dominated the decider in three scoring visits. The Londoner was runner-up at the UK Championship and German Masters last season and will hope he can go one step further this week and claim a first major crown.
Here are the scores for Ronnie’s match:
And the highlights of the match, shared by WST on YouTube
One thought on “The 2025 Saudi Arabia Masters – Ronnie Wins On Day 6”
First of all thank you so much to everyone for the nice words shared in comments yesterday as this blog celebrated its 10th anniversary. Thank you
It honestly feels as if your blog is around much longer already Monique, even though I didn’t even follow it in the first years at all. But it has become such a reliable source of compact information that I am thinking I could find even older information on here, but I know you were busy with photograhy prior to this.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
It honestly feels as if your blog is around much longer already Monique, even though I didn’t even follow it in the first years at all. But it has become such a reliable source of compact information that I am thinking I could find even older information on here, but I know you were busy with photograhy prior to this.