Snooker

[Delboy99]

Ronnie O'Sullivan is a record seven-time UK champion

Betway UK Championship
Dates: 23 November to 6 December Venue: Marshall Arena, Milton Keynes
Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV, BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button, BBC Sport website and BBC Sport app from Saturday, 28 November.

World champion Ronnie O'Sullivan suffered a shock 6-5 defeat by world number 66 Alexander Ursenbacher in the second round of the UK Championship.

O'Sullivan looked out of sorts for much of the contest and was beaten in a final-frame decider.
Switzerland's Ursenbacher started brightly and opened up a 3-1 advantage, but O'Sullivan hit back for 4-4.

The Englishman went in front for the first time, but Ursenbacher took back-to-back frames for a famous victory.

 

[Delboy99]

Ronnie O’Sullivan admits he was embarrassed by his performance in the UK Championship as he crashed out in the second round at the hands of Alexander Ursenbacher. The Rocket was a long way from his brilliant best, struggling to find any fluency among the balls and making just two half-centuries. The Swiss star capitalised, without really having to be at his best either, and won the match 6-5, moving into the last 32 of the UK Championship for the very first time. The world champion was not making any excuses after the defeat, praising how the 24-year-old performed and saying he was embarrassed by how badly he played as runaway favourite to win the match.
‘Alex played well and deserved his victory,’ said the world number two. ‘I made so many mistakes and if I had won that match it would have been robbery. ‘Good luck to him, I hope he can win a few more matches. I just couldn’t pot any balls, I felt embarrassed. ‘Every time I came to the table I just felt like I wouldn’t pot more than two balls. At 5-4 [ahead] I thought I might steal it, but I didn’t deserve to win.

 

[Delboy99]

Tuesday 1 Dec 2020 05:31PM

Two-time Betway UK Champion Mark Selby came from 2-1 down to score a 6-2 victory over Hossein Vafaei and set up a last 16 clash with Barry Hawkins.
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Selby struggled in the early stages against Iran’s top player but stepped up a gear to take the last five frames and boost his hopes of a winning a first Triple Crown event since 2017. He now faces a tough fixture against Hawkins for a place in the quarter-finals.
Leicester’s Selby took the opening frame with a break of 65 before Vafaei won the next two. Frame four lasted 61 minutes and came down to a battle on the colours, which was resolved when Vafaei crucially missed a mid-range pot on the green, letting Selby in to clear for 2-2.
That proved a turning point as world number five Selby took the next two frames with a top break of 50 to lead 4-2. Vafaei had a chance to win the seventh from 62-1 down, but failed to gain position on the final black. He then made a safety error on the black, Selby potting it for 5-2. A run of 52 in the next saw Selby reach the last 16 of this event for the tenth time.
“Hossein is a rhythm player and a good front runner,” said Selby, who won this event in 2012 and 2016. “If he had gone 3-1 up he would have been full of confidence. That fourth frame was so long that to lose it was a big blow for him. After the interval the match was more open and I felt more at ease.
“It will be tough against Barry because he is a top 16 player in my eyes. He is a great friend and we have been having dinner together this week. I might ask the hotel reception to call his room at 4am before our match!”

 

[Delboy99]

Stephen Maguire was thoroughly impressed by Chinese newcomer Pang Junxu on Tuesday after the 20-year-old produced a huge upset to knock the Scot out of the UK Championship. The youngster raced into a 3-0 lead over the former UK champion but Maguire settled and won five frames on the spin, including two centuries, and had his opponent on the ropes. However, the inexperienced Pang showed incredible poise to win the final three frames with breaks of 102, 54 and 95 to book his place in the last 16. Maguire was frustrated with his own display, but did not want to take anything away from the rising Chinese star, who played brilliantly.
‘That’s one way to throw a match away,’ said Maguire. ‘To be honest I shouldn’t have been in the match at the start, I was diabolical in the first few frames. He should have won more easily. I had false hope in the end. ‘He is a great player, I have no complaints about him. I’m thinking about having a break now over Christmas and not playing again until the Masters.’ Pang has now pulled off three big upsets, having downed Tom Ford and Noppon Saengkham, both by the same 6-4 scoreline, in the first two rounds.

 

[Delboy99]

Zhou Yuelong reached the quarter-finals of a Triple Crown event for the first time with an emphatic 6-2 win over John Higgins at the Betway UK Championship.


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Higgins, a three-time winner of this event, described Zhou as the best Chinese player to come through since Ding Junhui’s emergence 15 years ago. World number 25 Zhou goes through to the last eight to face Jack Lisowski or Xiao Goudong.


Last season, 22-year-old Zhou was runner-up at both the European Masters and the Shoot Out, and it seems only a matter of time before he wins his first ranking title.


He dominated the early exchanges today, taking the first four frames with top breaks of 90 and 60. Higgins made a trademark 72 clearance to win frame five, but then crucially lost the sixth on the colours. The Scot got the snooker he needed on the blue but then played a poor safety on the pink, allowing his opponent to pot it for 5-1.


A break of 80 gave Higgins frame seven, and he had chances in frame eight but when he missed a straight-forward pot on the green off the last red, it proved his last shot as Zhou cleared from yellow to pink for victory.


Zhou said: “It’s a big win for me because I had never beaten John before and it’s the first time I have reached the quarter-finals of this tournament. I have been playing well in practice and I felt I was ready, I believed I could win. Every time I go to a tournament I want to win it, and I just do my best on every shot.”


Higgins, the 11th member of the world’s top 16 to be knocked out this week, said: “It was a bad day. Zhou played well, his safety was very good. At 4-1 I played a horrendous safety on the pink, it was such an easy shot to get it safe. I love Zhou as a player and as a person as well. He deserves to go far. I rate him as the best since Ding coming through, he has got that good an all-round game. I hope he goes on and does himself justice.”

 

[Delboy99]

Neil Robertson has booked his spot in the last four of the UK Championship after dispatching Mark Selby 6-2 in ruthless fashion.
The Australian started the match in fine form, with a break of 75 putting him in the lead, with only a difficult red preventing him from registering a ton.
He was even more supreme in the second frame, with a century clearance doubling his lead, with Selby forced to watch on from his chair as the match seemed to be slipping away from him
Robertson was 63-0 up in the third frame before finally registering an error, with a missed black giving Selby the chance to pot his first ball of the encounter. However, the three-time world champion had no margin for error and after missing a red and losing a safety battle, Robertson went 3-0 up.
Prior to the mid-session interval, Selby finally got on the board thanks to two breaks of 40 either side of some safety errors from Robertson, the first time the Australian's defences had not been up to the task.
A fortuitous plant set up Selby for two half-century breaks as he won his second straight frame to reduce the deficit to one and suddenly Robertson's commanding lead was under threat.
An overzealous shot on the blue curtailed a break of 21 from Robertson and suddenly Selby was in. But a misplaced positional shot set up Robertson for the clearance and the 38-year-old was two frames ahead once more.
And Robertson never looked back, as a break of 91 in the seventh frame, put him on the cusp of victory, before finishing with a flourish, as his 750th century break put the icing on the cake.
In the other quarter-final Zhou Yuelong beat Jack Lisowski 6-4.

 

[Delboy99]

Scottish Open full draw, schedule and results (all times GMT)​

FIRST ROUND
Monday, 7 December
Morning (11am)

• Gary Thomson (a) v Nigel Bond [66]
• Ben Woollaston [32] v Amine Amiri [106]
• Mark Joyce [59] v Xu Si [77]
• Akani Songsermsawad [53] v Ian Burns [65]
• Alan McManus [44] v Xiao Guodong [35]
• Pang Junxu [108] v Ricky Walden [46]
• Stephen Maguire [9] v Zak Surety [113]
• Yan Bingtao [12] v Jak Jones [84]

Afternoon (1pm)

• Zhou Yuelong [25] v Peter Lines [91]
• Michael Holt [28] v Gerard Greene [72]
• Mark Selby [1] v Yuan Sijun [52]
• Gao Yang [99] v Duane Jones [82]
• Barry Pinches [73] v Jordan Brown [97]
• Ding Junhui [10] v Mark Davis [43]
• Iulian Boiko [120] v Joe O'Connor [49]
• Mark Allen [8] v Jimmy White [90]
• Steven Hallworth [111] v Brian Ochoiski (a)
• Liam Highfield [60] v Fan Zhengyi [118]
• David B Gilbert [13] v Matthew Stevens [33]

Evening (5.30pm)

• Louis Heathcote [68] v Si Jiahui [78]
• James Cahill [75] v Jamie Clarke [93]
• Anthony McGill [20] v Sam Craigie [55]
• Thepchaiya Un-Nooh [15] v Michael Collumb (a)
• Jack Lisowski [16] v Oliver Lines [115]
• Sean Maddocks [119] v Brandon Sargeant [98]
• Judd Trump [3] v Alexander Ursenbacher [64]
• Liang Wenbo [30] v David Lilley [89]
• Andrew Higginson [57] v Luca Brecel [34]
• Kyren Wilson [5] v Simon Lichtenberg [109]
• Barry Hawkins [21] v Stuart Carrington [54]
• Chen Zifan [81] v Mark King [45]
• Dominic Dale [67] v Igor Figueiredo [74]

Monday, 8 December
Morning (11am)

• Jamie Jones [102] v Daniel Wells [58]
• Zhao Jianbo [101] v Kacper Filipiak [80]
• Zhao Xintong [29] v Rod Lawler [79]
• Eden Sharav [70] v Anthony Hamilton [47]
• Mark J Williams [14] v Lukas Kleckers [104]
• Alex Borg [110] v Ashley Carty [103]
• Aaron Hill [105] v Peter Devlin [107]

Afternoon (1pm)

• Luo Honghao [62] v Li Hang [37]
• Matthew Selt [27] v Elliot Slessor [56]
• Neil Robertson [4] v Lei Peifan [100]
• Ashley Hugill [123] v Farakh Ajaib [114]
• Graeme Dott [22] v Robert Milkins [51]
• Lee Walker [122] v Fergal O'Brien [117]
• Joe Perry [19] v Jackson Page [69]
• Jimmy Robertson [48] v Noppon Saengkham [39]
• John Higgins [6] v Sohail Vahedi [85]
• Chris Wakelin [61] v Fraser Patrick [95]
• Ken Doherty [88] v Chang Bingyu [76]

Evening (5.30pm)

• Gary Wilson [17] v Lü Haotian [42]
• Stuart Bingham [11] v Ben Hancorn [116]
• Mitchell Mann [71] v Hossein Vafaei [36]
• Riley Parsons [112] v Lu Ning [40]
• Tom Ford [24] v Rory McLeod [96]
• Kurt Maflin [26] v Jamie O'Neill [83]
• Andy Hicks [86] v Billy Joe Castle [94]
• Allister Carter [18] v Ryan Day [41]
• Ronnie O'Sullivan [2] v Allan Taylor [92]
• Shaun Murphy [7] v David Grace [63]
• Scott Donaldson [23] v Michael White (a)
• Jamie Wilson [121] v Martin O'Donnell [38]
• Robbie Williams [87] v Paul S Davison (a)

 

[Delboy99]

Australia's Neil Robertson coasted into the UK Championship final with a 6-2 win over China's Zhou Yuelong.

Robertson, winner in 2013 and 2015, made three superb centuries and two half-centuries in an imperious showing.
Zhou was made to suffer for much of the match but a fluked blue enabled him to take the third frame, and he also made a stunning 141 break in the seventh.

Robertson will face world number one Judd Trump or China's Lu Ning in Sunday's showpiece in Milton Keynes.

 

[Delboy99]

Neil Robertson meets Yan Bingtao, Mark Selby takes on Stephen Maguire, John Higgins plays Mark Allen, Kyren Wilson faces Jack Lisowski and Shaun Murphy is drawn against Mark Williams. 2021 Masters draw John Higgins vs Mark Allen Stuart Bingham vs Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Ding Junhui Kyren Wilson vs Jack Lisowski Shaun Murphy vs Mark Williams Neil Robertson vs Yan Bingtao Judd Trump vs David Gilbert Mark Selby vs Stephen Maguire The tournament runs from 10-17 January at Alexandra Palace, London, and will see a return of fans to a snooker tournament for the first time since a few attended the World Championship final at the Crucible. There will be up to 1,000 fans at Ally Pally in each session as they watch the top 16 players in the world battle it out for the £250,000 top prize.

 

[tacker]

Scottish open final.....................goes down to the final frame

LIVE NOW.

 

[Delboy99]

Scottish open final.....................goes down to the final frame

LIVE NOW.

... did you mean UK Championship? Yes I saw this from 10 pm until the finish at around 1am. Glued to the telly!

 

[Delboy99]

Neil Robertson edged past world number one Judd Trump 10-9 to win his third UK Championship in what was an unforgettably epic late night final.

An electrifying contest of high breaks and impeccable cue ball control was expected, but it was a tactical fight.
They were locked at 4-4 after the first session, and there was no more than one frame between them throughout.

Robertson's 72 made it 9-9 and he won it after Trump missed a straightforward final pink in the hour-long decider.

The Australian collected the trophy and £200,000 in prize money at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, for the first UK Championship to take place without any spectators in attendance.

Fans watching at home will have expected two of this season's in-form players to put on a free-flowing spectacle but neither were anywhere near their pinnacle and ended up slugging it out into early Monday morning with the match finishing at 00:55 GMT.

Robertson told BBC Sport: "It was unbelievable. There was a lot of good stuff, and to use a quote Mark Williams used, it almost got so bad it was so good at one stage, because we were both trying so hard.

"We don't want frames to go that length. We like to win frames with big breaks in one visit.

"Maybe because I lost my last two finals I was trying too hard and brought Judd down a bit. But we are both gladiators out there, even without a crowd."

 

[Delboy99]

..... watched a few frames of the Dave Gilbert v Matthew Stevens match in the first round of the Scottish Open. Rather scrappy to say the least, and when I left it Gilbert was up 2-1 in the best of seven. But nothing to write home about. Gilbert was a long way off his form of a few months back.

 

[Delboy99]

Judd Trump has opened up about his deciding-frame defeat to Neil Robertson at the 2020 UK Championship, insisting the missed pink was 'harder' looking back now.
Neil Robertson edged a tense finale to win a third UK title after an error-strewn final that finished at 00:54am local time. Trump rolled in the colours in the final frame, but the world number one botched the last pink to hand Robertson the opportunity to clinch victory.
At the time, a crestfallen Trump was harsh in his assessment of what went wrong, but after further reflection he told Eurosport's Andy Goldstein and Jimmy White that he now sees it differently.
"I look back and the pink was actually a bit harder than what I felt like it was at the time after I missed it," Trump said in the Eurosport studio after his opening 4-1 win over Alexander Ursenbacher at the Scottish Open.
"I think if it was just the pink that I needed then I would have been more disappointed, but I was worried about coming back up for the black and I just didn't cue it well.
"So if that was the shot to win the match then it was a bit of a bottle, but everyone has missed simple shots over their time.

I'm not disappointed. At the time, for the first half-hour I was, but if you want to keep winning you can't let stuff like that stay in your head, you've got to get rid of it and try to win this tournament.

When asked if he was on his own after he drove back to his flat following the gut-wrenching defeat to Robertson, Trump explained how it really played out after he got home.
"No, my brother was there," he said. "My brother was there, I just went in and I just started laughing! And that was it, it broke the ice.
"He just said, 'look, you didn't really bottle it, it was obviously just nerves at the time'. It's a shot that I fancied getting but it was just a bit awkward, that's all.
"I just got excited. If I'd have taken a moment and stepped back, I probably would have potted them. But that's easy to say now!"
Trump will continue to try to respond in the best possible way to his UK Championship heartbreak at the Scottish Open, which you can watch live on eurosport.co.uk and the Eurosport app.

 

[Delboy99]

Ronnie O’Sullivan has slammed the lack of personality of snooker players in recent years.​

No stranger to expressing a divisive opinion, Ronnie O’Sullivan is of the belief that snooker could do with a few more characters to make it more interesting.
O’Sullivan has criticised the way that most players approach the sport that earned him six World Championship titles by contrasting it with the likes of athletics and tennis.
“Every sport needs characters. You look at athletics, you look at Usain Bolt, a huge character, a massive personality,” O’Sullivan said on the Track and Ball podcast.
“In tennis, it’s Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, who bring their own stuff. In snooker, there ain’t a lot of personality there.
“It would be great for them to just come out and give it a little bit.
“I don’t mean to be flash or arrogant but just play with a bit of personality, play the game, express yourself, look like you are enjoying it.
“Don’t look like it’s a pint of blood or standing there and the world is on your shoulders.
“Go out there and let it rip. Give it a go. Smash it up. I’m doing that inside. You have to tone it down a bit. But I’m still playing with personality.
“I look at some of these other players and they are like dead. You need a good kick up the bum. Liven yourself up.”
O’Sullivan, who has never shied away from criticising his fellow snooker players, seemed to point the blame towards another six-time World Champion, Steve Davis, for sucking the personality out of the sport.
According to ‘The Rocket’, Davis is responsible for the dearth of characters in modern-day snooker despite the fact that a number of players are good fun away from the table.
“Steve Davis ruined the game in the ’80s,” O’Sullivan claimed.
“Everybody else played and had a laugh, a joke and had a personality. Davis came along and he was like a robot.
“As a person, he has personality but on the table it was emotionless, sipping his water, not talking. That became the new snooker player.
“We all became like Steve Davis clones.
“But snooker in the ’80s was buzzing. You had Terry Griffiths with his little hairstyle, Willie Thorne with his little moustache, big Bill Werbeniuk.
“You had so many characters and people could relate to them. Now there are none.
“All of the snooker players are nice people when you speak to them off the table. But on the table, you think: ‘Mate, give me something.’ They don’t have any energy.
“I’m sure there is some passion in there somewhere. But they don’t play with enough of it.”

 

[Delboy99]

Ronnie O’Sullivan advanced to the fourth round of the Scottish Open with a battling 4-3 win over Tian Pengfei.
The Rocket was scratchy throughout the contest at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes - which is playing host to the event due to Covid-19 restrictions - as he made mistakes in the first two frames that his opponent did not take advantage of.
O’Sullivan’s facial mannerisms gave an indication of how he felt he was playing, but he steeled himself to get over the line and set up a meeting with Robbie Williams - a 4-3 winner against Lu Ning - later on Thursday.
The two-time Scottish Open champion - in 1998 and 2000 - was scrappy from the off, but Tian failed to take the chances he was handed and the 33-year-old paid the price in the first frame when he missed a plant into the corner pocket and brought the black into play. The world champion accepted the opening handed to him to wrap up the frame.

• Scottish Open 2020 LIVE
• Scottish Open 2020: Latest draw, schedule and results

The second frame was a carbon copy of the opener, with errors coming from the cue of O’Sullivan and Tian failing to take advantage.
The Chinese player missed a blue into the middle that was frame ball, which preceded a lengthy safety exchange. O’Sullivan had the better of it, only for Tian to fluke a yellow to seemingly take command. However, he missed the green and the Rocket took green, brown, blue and a pressure pink to take the frame.
Tian could have wilted after throwing away the second frame, but he dug in and got on the scoreboard when taking the third frame on the back of a break of 40. Tian levelled the match in the fourth, but he needed three bites before getting over the line.
O’Sullivan replaced his tip after his win over Allan Taylor in the first round, and said after beating Chang Bingyu that it was like playing a different game with the new addition to his cue. It did not look so positive against Tian, as he miscued when trying to wrestle control of the fourth frame, and he was soon inspecting and picking at the tip.
O’Sullivan continued to make errors in the fifth and Tian was able to edge into the lead for the first time in the match - and go to within one frame of success.
Tian had a chance in the sixth, but went back to his chair after missing a black off the spot and O'Sullivan stepped in to produce his most fluent snooker of the match. A break of 93 enabled him to force a decider - although there was a sigh from the 45-year-old as he passed up the chance of a century when missing a yellow.
A lengthy safety exchange raised the tension in the final frame. O’Sullivan broke the deadlock with a superb long red and he went through the gears and sealed the win with a 78.
The world champion is through to the fourth round of the Scottish Open.

 

[Delboy99]

Mark Allen says missing a 'shocker of a black' dashed his hopes of winning a second Scottish Open title in three years as he went down to a last 16 defeat against an in-form Ricky Walden.


The 2018 champion threw away a 3-2 lead against the world No.39 as a break of 73 from Walden in the decider hauled him over the line. Allen, the world No.9, rued his inability to take his chances and knows missing a gilt-edged black cost him dear.


The 34-year-old fumed: "I missed a shocker of a black, if I'm honest, in that last frame.


"I was 49-0 up with an easy black on the spot when the reds were all sitting. I've only got myself to blame, and you can't be missing balls like that and expect to win.


"It was frustrating in the fact that I got in a great position to win the match and didn't take it. It's not often that I put myself in those positions and don't do it, so I'll have to go away and think about that as it was a really bad black that I missed. I'll just put it down to a lack of concentration."

 

[Delboy99]

Kyren Wilson: ‘Still in pain after car accident’​

The incident occurred before his defeat in the quarter-finals of the Scottish Open.​

Kyren Wilson has revealed that he was involved in a serious car accident on Friday that left his car written off.
Ahead of his last-eight fixture with Jamie Jones in the Scottish Open, Wilson’s Mercedes was hit by a van driver while he was driving to his snooker club in Northampton.
Although nobody was seriously hurt, the crash left the Kettering cueist with pain in his neck and back.
After being left stranded on the side of the road for three hours, Wilson’s preparation ahead of his big match in the Home Nations tournament was significantly impacted.
The World Championship runner-up found it understandably difficult during the encounter, with Welshman Jones taking advantage to seal a comprehensive 5-1 victory.
Upon receiving messages of support on Twitter after his car accident was revealed, Kyren Wilson said: “Thank you all for the well wishes.”
“Still in pain with my neck and back after the car accident before yesterday’s match. Main thing is everyone involved wasn’t seriously hurt!”

 

[Delboy99]

Selby holds commanding lead over O'Sullivan in final 7-2

 

[Delboy99]

MARK SELBY TAUNTS RONNIE O SULLIVAN WITH SCOTTISH OPEN WINNERS SPEECH.

The Mark Selby vs Ronnie O’Sullivan rivalry is alive and well (Picture: Getty Images) Mark Selby not only dished out a thrashing to Ronnie O’Sullivan in the Scottish Open final on Sunday night, but he was also happy to take the mick in the post-match interview. Selby comfortably beat the world champion 9-3 in Milton Keynes, retaining the title he won last season and extending his winning run in ranking event finals to 11 on the spin. It was a straight forward victory for the three-time world champion, in a contest in which he was never behind, but he was happy to add a bit of spice to proceedings after the match. While he described O’Sullivan as the ‘best player to play the game’ he also made subtle digs at the Rocket’s recent comments about his cue action and troublesome tip. ADVERTISEMENT O’Sullivan continually spoke of his struggles with his cue action during the World Championship, while his problems with the tip of his cue has been the ongoing narrative this week. ‘To win any tournament nowadays is great, I’m really really happy,’ Selby told Eurosport. ‘Don’t feel as though I played fantastic today, could have played a lot better, I felt like I was searching for my cue action all day.