[Sports Road News]British billiard player Ronnie O’Sullivan, who is regarded as the favorite to win the tournament and nicknamed “Rocket”, collapsed in the final of the European Masters on Sunday night, and was shocked by the Chinese teenager Fan Zhengyi With a 10-9 defeat, he failed to win his 39th career ranking championship; Fan Zhengyi became the fifth Chinese player to win a ranking championship in history.
Fan Zhengyi from Harbin has never broken through the semi-finals in the ranking competition in his career. The 21-year-old Chinese player, who was ranked 80th in the world before the European Masters, defeated players including K Wilson (Kyren Wilson) and compatriot Yan Bingtao on the way to the promotion, in exchange for challenging his 60th appearance in the final of the ranking tournament. Rocket” O’Suliyun’s chance.
Ronnie, who is striving for his 39th career ranking championship, took the lead in the first game and won the first game. However, this was his only lead in the entire final. Fan Zhengyi scored 50+ 3 times in the first quarter, leading by 4:2 at one point. After the first quarter, he tied with Osulliyun 4:4.
Fan Zhengyi, whose odds of winning the title before the game were only 751 times, played two consecutive cues of 100+ in the first two rounds of the second quarter, pulling the lead to 6:4. Although O’Sulliyun tied following that, Fan Zhengyi went down two games in a row, and Ronnie played the only 100+ game in the entire final. In addition to winning the 16th game, the two players tied once more 8:8. In the 17th game, Fan Zhengyi seized the opportunity to play a cue and won 82 degrees. The Chinese teenager had an obvious scoring opportunity in the 18th game, but he made a mistake following only hitting 19 degrees. Osu Liyun took the opportunity to tie, The two players tied for the sixth time in the final.
When it came to the deciding game, Osulliyun tried to hit a red wave from the far table, but the ball “hit the hoop” popped out. Under the circumstance that the red wave on the table was quite scattered, Fan Zhengyi calmly hit a cue of 92 degrees to win, with the total number of rounds. 10:9 defeated Osu Liyun and won the highest prize of 80,000 pounds (regarding 835,000 Hong Kong dollars) so far in his 4-year career. His world ranking will also rise by 49 places to 31 in the world ranking.
Fan Zhengyi, who won the 2017 Under-21 World Championship before switching to the professional game, said following the game: “Fighting once morest Osuliyun in the final is really a dream come true. He is the idol of every Chinese player, even once morest Zhao Xintong. The same goes for Yan Bingtao, because Ronnie is very generous to us. I’m really happy to learn from him.” Fan Zhengyi continued: “It’s important to beat K Wilson because that gives me confidence. , let me know that I can beat better players. Then I won once morest Yan Bingtao, and following that, I just took it one game at a time. I was actually very happy to be able to win a game today!”
Fan Zhengyi won the European Masters Championship, making him the fourth player to win the first ranking match of his career this season. He is also the fifth player to win the ranking match following Ding Junhui, Liang Wenbo, Yan Bingtao and Zhao Xintong. Championship of Chinese golfers. Fan Zhengyi, who debuted only 4 years ago, also thanked Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao who practiced together in Sheffield: “We play together every day and learn from each other. That’s the best thing regarding being together. Our feelings are like Brothers.”
After losing, O’Sullivan failed to win the World Grand Prix at the end of last year. In fact, the 46-year-old British player has only won one title in the next 17 ranking matches since he became world champion for the sixth time in August of the previous year, including his failure to win in the 2020/21 season. A championship, it was not until the end of last year that the championship drought was broken.
However, even following Ronnie lost, he looked convincing following the game: “It’s amazing to play once morest a talented young star, they’ve taken the game to a whole new level. It’s actually shocking. Yes, I can’t play like them. They’ve been pushing everyone to improve and working hard, which is good for China and pool. In a few years, pool may be like table tennis, Chinese players will dominate This sport has knocked us all over the place.”
After the European Masters, O’Sullivan will immediately move to the Welsh Open. He would have fought James Cahill at 7 o’clock tonight (28th), but because of his participation in the European Masters final, Its event has been adjourned to Tuesday (1st) at 1 pm. On the other hand, Hong Kong billiard player Wu On Yee will also play in the Welsh Open, where she will fight Ali Carter, ranked 25th in the world; nowTV 630 and 637 will broadcast the match live from 6 pm on Tuesday.
Source: Comprehensive foreign media
This article is by “Sportsroad“Originally published in “[European Billiard Masters]The Rockets lost the tiebreaker and Fan Zheng won the final of the ranking match in the first match」
