Will snooker turn into table tennis? Fan Zhengyi defeated O'Sullivan to win the championship! Cost season third man. In the final of the 2022 Snooker European Masters, China's post-00s fan Zhengyi beat O'Sullivan 10-9 to win the first ranking championship of his career, while Fan Zhengyi is also the third Chinese player to win the ranking championship this season, the first two are Yan Bingtao and Zhao Xintong, which can't help but ask, will snooker become table tennis?
The 21-year-old Fan Zhengyi only transferred to the professional arena 3 years ago, and his performance before this year was relatively average, until the German Masters, Fan Zhengyi reached the top 8, refreshing his best in the ranking competition. At the European Masters, Fan Zheng once again showed his dark horse nature, first defeating Aaron Hill 5-3, followed by a 5-4 narrow victory over the world's fifth-ranked Karen Wilson. In the third round, Fan Zhengyi played against his friend Yan Bingtao, winning 5 consecutive sets after falling behind 0-3 and winning 5-3. In the quarter-finals, Fan Zhengyi defeated Gilbert 5-3. In the semi-finals, Fan Zhengyi defeated past champion Dortmund 6-4 to reach the final of the ranking tournament for the first time in his career. In contrast, O'Sullivan did not encounter too many difficulties, and did not even meet seeded players on the way to the promotion, which shows that O'Sullivan retained a lot of physical strength. The final was a 10-win 19 innings, with the two testing each other in the first two innings, with O'Sullivan winning the first set 66-6 and Fan quickly pulling back the first set 68-1.
In the third set, Fan Zhengyi scored a single 57 points to win another set. In the fourth set, O'Sullivan won 66-1, and the two were tied again on aggregate. In the next two sets, Fan Zhengyi took the initiative on the court, scoring 63 points and 78 points in a row to lead 4-2 on aggregate. However, O'Sullivan was by no means idle, first pulling back a set at 72-38, followed by a single 83-point clean sheet to tie the total score to 4-4. In the face of O'Sullivan's counterattack, Fan Zhengyi remained calm, scoring 135 points and 110 consecutive scores to win two consecutive sets, leading 6-4 on aggregate. O'Sullivan pulled in two more consecutive sets to tie the aggregate to a 6-6 draw. In the 13th and 14th innings, Fan Zhengyi won with multiple starts, and the aggregate score was 8-6. In the 15th inning, O'Sullivan scored a single 107 points. In the 16th set, O'Sullivan won 80-37, and the total score of the two was 8-8.
In the 17th set, Fan Zhengyi scored a single 82 points, winning 82-9, and the aggregate score was 9-8 to get the match point. In the 18th set, O'Sullivan dragged the match into the decider 90-23. In the decider, Fan Zhengyi did not give O'Sullivan a chance, played a single 92 points to lock in the victory, thus defeating O'Sullivan with an aggregate score of 10-9 to win the first ranking championship of his career, while Fan Zhengyi also became the fifth Chinese mainland player to win the ranking championship after Ding Junhui, Liang Wenbo, Yan Bingtao and Zhao Xintong.