On January 12, 2022, Beijing time, the snooker Masters ended the third matchday competition, and the two world champions, O'Sullivan and Selby, successfully advanced. O'Sullivan won five straight sets to eliminate Lissovsky 6-1 in the next round against Neil Robertson. Selby had a mediocre offensive touch, but still eliminated Stephen Maguire 6-3, and Selby will face old friend Barry Hawkins in the next round.
This season, O'Sullivan has shown good competitive form, he won the World Grand Prix, breaking the championship drought at the same time, O'Sullivan also regained self-confidence. More importantly, O'Sullivan's attitude towards the game is quite serious, before playing in the Masters, O'Sullivan posted a photo of his training, his training time is very long, he certainly hopes to achieve another good result in the Masters.
Interestingly, after Zhao Xintong's first round out, O'Sullivan also met with Zhao Xintong and encouraged Zhao Xintong in person. In O'Sullivan's view, Zhao Xintong is a talented player with strong offensive strength, but lack of defense and stability. In the following game, O'Sullivan demonstrated defense and stability to Zhao Xintong, and also educated the equally young Lissovsky.
In fact, Zhao Xintong and Lisovsky have some similar styles, focusing on offense, but there is still a significant gap between defense and stability, which is also the main reason why Lissovsky has not won the first ranking championship. Facing O'Sullivan, Lisowski's shortcomings were infinitely magnified, and O'Sullivan played 86, 63, 127, 64 and 125 points in a row after 1-1, and O'Sullivan, who won five consecutive sets, won 6-1.
This victory reflects O'Sullivan's strong offensive strength, he maintained a stable offensive output throughout the game, and the defensive end did not give Lissovsky too many opportunities, which really taught young people like Zhao Xintong and Lissovsky a lesson. In fact, zhao xintong insists on his own style of play is not wrong, but if he wants to achieve great achievements, Zhao Xintong needs to improve his comprehensive strength, make up for the shortcomings in defense and stability, and learn well with O'Sullivan.
In the other game, Selby played against Stephen Maguire, and both were in average offensive form with a lot of turnovers. In the whole game, Selby only had one shot over 50 points, that is, a single 64 points in the sixth inning, Stephen Maguire shot a three-shot 50+, but the final score was Selby's 6-3 victory. It was clear that Selby was not in perfect shape and hadn't been too good all season.
The winning Selby will face Barry Hawkins in the quarter-finals, while O'Sullivan's opponent in the next round will be Neil Robertson. There are two games left in the first round of the Masters, Mr. Trump vs. Mark Allen and Karen Wilson vs. Bingham.