O'Sullivan won the 2021 World Grand Prix
On January 1, Beijing time, according to the news of "Eurosport", Ronnie O'Sullivan, who has just won the 2021 World Grand Prix, will return to the arena on January 11 to compete in the 2022 Snooker Masters held at Alexandra Palace in London. The Rockets will fight for a record-breaking 8th masters title and a £250,000 championship prize.
This past month, O'Sullivan finally ended his 16-month-long qualifying title drought — in Coventry, he beat 2012 Masters champion Neil Robertson 10-8 to win the 2021 World Grand Prix — and the Rockets were in pretty good shape ahead of Snooker's sport's biggest invitational.
O'Sullivan infographic
The 38-time ranking champion kicks off his 30th year as a professional in 2022 – and he will pursue further glory in the Masters, which is made up of a top 16 player.
In 1995, at the age of 19 years and 69 days, O'Sullivan beat John Higgins 9-3 at the Wembley Conference Centre to win the Masters for the first time, becoming the youngest Masters champion in snooker history. He has since won the event six times in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2014, 2016 and 2017.
Now, at the age of 46, the Rockets are also poised to become the oldest Masters champion of all time – if he succeeds this year, he could break the record of 43 set by Stewart Bingham two years ago, when Bingham beat Ali Carter 10-8 to win the title. In addition, if the "Rockets" continue to win the championship, then the record he has just set for the "time span between the first title and the last championship" will be expanded again – a full 28 years have passed from winning the first ranking championship of his career at the British Championships in 1993 to the 2021 World Grand Prix.
O'Sullivan will face Jack Lissovsky in the opening match of the Masters. Defending champion and Chinese teenager Yan Bingtao will face two-time Masters winner Mark Williams in the opening match on January 9. Higgins, who lost 8-10 to Yan Bingtao in last year's final, will face the new Keying Championship champion Zhao Xintong on January 10.
All matches prior to the final were a 6-of-11 set and the final was a 10-win 19-set format.
The specific schedule of the 2022 Snooker Masters is:
2022 Snooker Masters Schedule
So far in the 2021/2022 season, snooker has decided eight titles – David Gilbert (Champions League ranking version), Mark Williams (British Open), Mark Allen (Northern Ireland Open), Neil Robertson (English Open), Judd Trump (Crown Champion), Zhao Xintong (British Championship), Luka Brechel (Scottish Open) and Ronnie O'Sullivan (World Grand Prix).
8 events, 8 different championships, I wonder if this 9th event will produce another different champion?
Snooker's titles so far in the 2021/2022 season