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Snooker's Welsh Open Championships start on Monday - and I reckon
we're being offered great prices about a Ronnie 'The Rocket'
O'Sullivan victory.
It has been no surprise to see O'Sullivan has been making the news
again - for a variety of reasons.
His Masters win saw Ronnie improve as that tournament progressed.
The Rocket's First Round win over Joe Perry (6-5) was anything but
vintage O'Sullivan, however his subsequent performances against
World Number 7 Ali Carter (beaten 6-2), World Number 2 Stephen
Maguire (beaten 6-1) and World Number 4 Mark Selby (beaten in the
final 10- saw Ronnie playing to between 60% - 70% of his full
potential.
17 breaks of 50+ earned him his place in that Masters Final -
exceptional numbers considering he was playing with a cue that he
only took possession of on the Saturday prior to the start of the
tournament.
The fact that he won any matches at all with a new piece of wood is
hard for some snooker judges to believe, let alone that he won the
event, quashing 3 of the world's top 10 along the way. Ronnie has
since cited his Masters success as his "best achievement in
snooker.''
Well, he won't be playing with that particular cue in the Welsh
Open - he revealed after the Masters that there were a 'few shots
that he couldn't play' with this implement, and that he has since
returned it to his friend - and legendary cue maker - John Parris
after the event.
No doubt Ronnie will be wielding another Parris creation in Wales
and this time it will be one that he'll be able to play his full
repertoire of shots with - that's his plan, given he has had nearly
a month to bed in his new weapon.
O'Sullivan has one of the best Win-Loss records on the Tour on
Welsh soil.
Since 1995, Ronnie has gone a mightily impressive 'won 33 lost 12'
in Wales - a record that has included 3 'Welsh Open' finals and 2
trophies.
And over the past five seasons Ronnie has banged in an even more
impressive 11-3 Welsh win-loss score - beating Shaun Murphy, Ali
Carter, Mark Selby, Stephen Hendry and Neil Robertson.
In fact when you take a closer look at this form you notice that 2
of those 3 losses were by virtue of just 1 frame - a 5-4 loss to
Neil Robertson in 2007 and a 9-8 loss to Mark Selby in the final
last season.
It's important to take these narrow losses into account, as they
indicate that Ronnie has never dumped this event into his
'tournaments I don't care about' box. We can probably thank the
snooker education given to him by his father for that, Ronnie's dad
numbers most of the Welsh 'greats' as personal friends.
O'Sullivan says, "I love coming back to play in the Welsh Open, and
it's not just because I've had such success in the tournament over
the past few years.
"It's because Wales is such a special place to play snooker. It's
like going to Las Vegas to box because Wales has got such a great
pedigree in snooker.
"A lot of great players have come out of Wales over the years -
world champions like Mark Williams, Terry Griffiths and Ray
Reardon.
"It means the fans there are very knowledgeable and I've always
noticed that extra bit of support. The fans are pretty good most
places we play, but they really love their snooker in Wales."
I doubt whether Ron would ever put in a bad showing here, and 11/4
is far too big a price for this brilliantly gifted player."
saw Ronnie playing to between 60% - 70% of his full
