The 2022 Snooker Welsh Open staged a high-profile battle of focus in the round of 32, with China's snooker leader Ding Junhui welcoming 38-title winner Ronnie O'Sullivan to challenge.
The two can be said to be the favorite snooker players of domestic fans, of course, Ding Junhui and O'Sullivan are not only opponents on the field but also good friends in private life, and O'Sullivan often goes to Ding Junhui's British residence to visit and eat.
However, due to Ding Junhui's poor form in the past two years, it is difficult to find a victory against O'Sullivan, and the last victory over O'Sullivan dates back to the 2019 British Championship, and since then Ding Junhui has lost all six games.
This game can be said to be a battle of honor for Ding Junhui, and with the rankings constantly declining and other Chinese teenagers performing well, Ding Junhui urgently needs a victory that boosts his confidence to prove himself again.
At the beginning of the game, Ding Junhui took the lead in kicking off the long platform, O'Sullivan scored accurately but made a mistake in attacking around the black ball, Ding Junhui also lost half of the long table red ball, fortunately, O'Sullivan then sent a big gift Ding Junhui to complete the 70+ opening red for the second time.
In the second game O'Sullivan also leaked out of the bench opportunity with the kick-off, Ding Junhui felt good and directly scored after establishing a 42-point lead, Ding Junhui made a mistake, O'Sullivan returned with a single shot of 80+ to achieve the equalizer.
In the next two sets, Ding Junhui first gained a mobile game to establish a lead by kicking off, and forced O'Sullivan to make a mistake on the defensive end to counter the score with a single 50+ and 60+. However, O'Sullivan was not to be outdone in the fourth set to catch Ding Junhui's key mistake to clear the score to a 2-2 draw.
In the crucial inning, when Ding Junhui had the opportunity to win the game, he made a fatal mistake in hitting the red ball on the side of the library, and O'Sullivan laughed at the gift to complete the clearance and take the lead to reach the match point. In the last set, Ding Junhui once again made a mistake at a critical moment, defeating the red ball and not scoring was still in the bag, O'Sullivan steadily scored into Ding Junhui and no longer pestered and chose to concede defeat, and finally lost to O'Sullivan again 2:4 regrettably out.
Looking at the performance of Ding Junhui in the first few sets of the whole game, the performance was quite remarkable, and the two played back and forth, but in the last two sets, it was obvious that Ding Junhui's mentality had changed, and low-level mistakes had increased again, and O'Sullivan was not soft to take away the victory.
Ding Junhui has not won against O'Sullivan for three consecutive years after his defeat in this game, which has also become a heart demon that Ding Junhui cannot defeat, as a fan, he sincerely hopes that Ding Junhui can regain his strength and stage the return of the king as soon as possible.