Gary Wilson scored only his second ever victory over Ronnie O’Sullivan, prevailing 5-2 to make the semi-finals of the Xi’an Grand Prix.
World number 17 Wilson now faces in-form Shaun Murphy in the last four in a match which has wide reaching rankings implications.
This event marks the cut-off for qualification to the lucrative invitational Riyadh Season Snooker Championship. Only the top ten in the Johnstone’s Paint World Rankings, alongside two wildcards, will qualify. Wilson must win the tournament to earn his place, while Murphy just needs to make the final.
Wilson came close to capturing a fourth ranking title earlier this season. He beat the likes of Murphy, Judd Trump, John Higgins and Mark Allen on a sparkling run to the Wuhan Open final. Agonisingly the Newcastle cueman fell a frame short of the title, losing 10-9 to Xiao Guodong.
Victory over seven-time Crucible king O’Sullivan sees Wilson make the head-to-head record 7-2 to the Rocket. The Tyneside Terror’s only other victory over O’Sullivan came at the 2022 Scottish Open, an event he went on to win.
In a sparkling display, breaks of 74, 101, 79, 120 and 62 helped Wilson to victory this evening.
“You’ve got to show him you are ready to play. Against Ronnie, you can tell he’s trying to look at signs. Trying to tell if you feel good, or you feel bad. Whether you are taking your chances or you aren’t. If you are bottling it. All of that goes through your head. He feeds off that. You need to try and block it out of your head,” said 41-year-old Wilson.
“I am one of the weakest on the tour for technique, but if I’m comfortable in it and doing what I want to do then the confidence comes from there. I feel like I can play any shot on the table and beat anyone in the world. It has been kind of like that this week. I’ve felt reasonably in control.
“I’m trying to enjoy this season. I’m trying to enjoy playing and hitting the ball alright. If I can keep doing that then I’m not too disappointed if I lose. To me, when you’ve had so much non-enjoyment from the game by hitting the ball bad, I’m just happy to be playing well.”
It’s disappointing, but it didn’t come as a surprise to me. Ronnie hasn’t hit top form this season so far and, maybe, it was to be expected. He’s had big changes in his life in recent months, getting married and moving to Dubai. He’s only human – we should remember that – and those changes, even if they are “happy changes”, have surely impacted his mindset and his practice routine. Snooker can’t possibly have been his main focus in recent months.
That said, this match was some quality … they played seven frames and had eight breaks over 50 between them, five by Gary and three by Ronnie.
Here is the last frame shared on YouTube by TNT
As usual some will reflect that Ronnie shouldn’t have attempted that risky red in the last frame but that’s always been his game. When he sees an opportunity he goes for it, reasoning that he may well not get another one. Over the course of his career, this mindset has brought more good than bad results. Had he potted it he may well have won that frame … and then who knows?
Here the results of the other QF matches played today:
Daniel Wells 5-2 Liam Pullen
Mark Williams 5-4 Lyu Haotian
Shaun Murphy 5-3 Ding Junhui
Lyu Haotian had four breaks over 60 in the match he lost to Willo… who had only two such breaks but won all the closer frames. Willo is one of the shrewdest players on tour and he is not really interested in making centuries. In the past, he often played safe as soon as he was sure that his opponent wouldn’t come back at the table.
That reminds me of an interview with Rory McLeod. Rory was being criticised by a journalist for being overly defensive, as opposed to “attacking” and Rory observed that the game is called “snooker”, not “potting”.
Addendum
Not sure how much of a factor this was, if at all, but the table condition was far from ideal. Apparently the cloth was damaged or worn out in the area around the place were the triangle of reds stands at the start of the frame, in particular on the right side of that area as we look on our screens. This was brought to the attention of the referee by Gary, not Ronnie. They played the first frame and then the fitters were called and brushed the table vigourously. There was talk about changing the cloth, but that would have taken too long and they decided to carry on as it was. Ronnie didn’t complain about that after the match, but then that’s not surprising. He wouldn’t want to look like he’s making excuses after a defeat.It was the same for both players. Still it may well have been a factor, material1 and/or psychological, as Ronnie’s game is all about accurate positioning. In fine though, it doesn’t matter, under those challenging conditions, Gary was the better player and deserved the win, that’s all.
By that I mean influencing the “physics” of the game, influencing the balls’ trajectories. ↩︎
Ronnie O'Sullivan 