On the evening of March 3, the 2022 World Snooker Tour Welsh Open began a focus battle in the second round, with Chinese leader Ding Junhui and "Rocket" O'Sullivan staged the 29th "Ding Olympic Games" of their careers. Although Ding Junhui played a perfect score of 5 strokes and 50+ in the game, he was reversed by O'Sullivan's three consecutive sets of victories in the case of a 2-1 lead, and finally lost 2-4, stopping the round of 32, which was also a seven-game losing streak against O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan successfully advanced to the round of 16, and the next round will be against the winner between Yan Bingtao and Wharton.
Every duel between Ding Junhui and O'Sullivan always attracts the huge attention of Chinese fans. In the past two years, Ding Junhui's state has fluctuated, and this season's world ranking has fallen out of the top 16, and by the end of the European Masters, it has fallen out of the top 32. Especially in the recent match against the world's top 16 seeds, suffered a 13-game losing streak. In the previous showdown with O'Sullivan, Ding Junhui had lost more than he had won, and even suffered six consecutive defeats in the previous six games.
It is gratifying that in the first round of the Welsh Open, Ding Junhui felt explosive in his hand when he played against Holt, and played a gorgeous data of 3 shots to break the hundred, which made the outside world full of expectations. And O'Sullivan in the first round of the main game, against the German player Klex, can only be said to play poorly, and finally won 4-2, coupled with his previous European Masters final, 9-10 "upset" defeat to Fan Zhengyi, no chance of the championship, the ups and downs, but also let the fans worry about the "Rockets".
In the first game of the two matches, Ding Junhui scored a single 72 points to achieve a good start and lead 1-0. In the second set, O'Sullivan scored 85 points in the backhand to complete the counter-attack and chase it to a 1-1 draw. In the third set, Ding Junhui started twice, and completed a two-shot 50+ performance of 58 points and 59 points in a single game, leading 2-1 again. In the fourth set, Ding Junhui made a mistake after a single shot of 57 points, and was directly overturned by O'Sullivan, and the score between the two came to a 2-2 draw. In the fifth set, the same scene was staged again, Ding Junhui scored 53 points in a single shot, ventured to play the red ball of Ku with his left hand, the result was a mistake, and was reversed again by O'Sullivan's clearance, directly 3-2 to take the lead in winning the match point. In the sixth set, Ding Junhui once again made a low-level mistake, O'Sullivan played three times, directly completed the super point, won three consecutive sets, and finally completed the reversal 4-2 and successfully advanced to the round of 16.