Ronnie O’Sullivan suffered a narrow 10-8 loss to Shaun Murphy in the Champion of Champions on Sunday night in Coventry at the Ricoh Arena but the ‘Rocket’ has little time to dwell on that defeat with his opening match at the Shanghai Masters taking place in the early hours of Wednesday morning. O’Sullivan was aiming to win the prestigious event for the third time, having triumphed in 2013 and 2014, but he was unable to get the better of his fellow Englishman in a gripping contest.
The five-time world champion raced into a 2-0 lead, making breaks of 97 and 98, before the ‘Magician’ rattled off the next four frames with impressive breaks of 70, 85 and 53 in that run. Wordsley’s finest then levelled the match at 4-4 by taking frames seven and eight but Murphy once again responded in fantastic fashion, winning the next four to move into a commanding 8-4 lead. Both players traded frames to leave the 2005 world champion one frame from victory but O’Sullivan began to mount a stirring comeback by taking the next three frames.
However, Murphy, who had failed to get past round one in his four previous tournament outings, managed to get over the line, securing a 10-8 win and his first title of the 2017/18 campaign. It was just the second defeat O’Sullivan has tasted at the event but he will have to move on quickly with his opening game at the Shanghai Masters on Wednesday. The former world number one will go head-to-head with Gary Wilson and the latter will be looking to defeat his compatriot for the first time, having lost the two previous meetings 5-3 and 10-7. O’Sullivan, who won the competition back in 2009, is the 2/13 favourite to win his match whilst Wilson is the 17/4 outsider.
Snooker odds available at Dafabet.