On the evening of March 2, Beijing time, the Snooker 2022 Welsh Open ended another round of 16 battle in Newport, England, and China's famous Ding Junhui fought with the former bitter lord and champion Ronnie. O'Sullivan did not perform well in the brilliant matchup, during which he was equalized twice, and eventually lost two consecutive sets to the opponent and missed the round of 16.
If the world's top eight is the 1st tier, then the 35-year-old Ding Junhui is currently in an awkward position in the world ranking, has fallen out of the 3rd tier and slid to 33rd place, and since winning the 3rd crown of the British Championship in 2019, the Chinese brother has fallen into a championship drought for nearly 3 years.
Look at 47-year-old Ronnie. O'Sullivan is currently ranked No. 2 in the world, with 38 ranking titles, plus six Grand Slams, and a 14-stroke 147 in hand.
Although the Rockets took five consecutive asian games last season, they show signs of rebounding in form this season, winning the 10-8 victory over Robertson in the World Grand Prix final, achieving rookie Fan Zhengyi in the European Masters final, and also defeating Little in the Players Championship to end the losing streak.
This is the 29th time that the two have staged the "Ding Olympic Games", and in the last few battles, Ding Junhui has suffered six consecutive defeats.
However, this round still adopts a strong fortuitous 7-game 4-win system, and the winner and loser are normal.
In this battle, Ding Junhui took the lead in the game, seizing O'Sullivan's mistake to play a single shot 70+ to make it 1-0.
In the second set, Ding Junhui attacked the far platform strongly, and after scoring 42 consecutive points, there was a major mistake, and the large angle attack red ball was inaccurate to hand over the possession.
After O'Sullivan got started, he opened the game and directly played a single shot of 80+ to complete the wonderful clearance, and the score became 1-1.
In the 3rd set, Ding Junhui played the far platform again, and after scoring 50+ in a row, he was forced to force the attack on the black ball at the large angle point due to poor positioning, but the target ball stayed at the mouth of the bag, fortunately, there was no chance for the opponent.
In the subsequent safety ball matchup, O'Sullivan actually knocked the "Black General" in when he played the defensive return ball, and also left the red ball in the bag.
Ding Junhui easily hit the target, showed his good hand again, and played a single 60+ to continue the lead.
In the 4th set, the two sides began a defensive battle, O'Sullivan used the strict security world to force Ding Junhui to attack, the result of Ding Junhui did lose the target ball, but also left a chance, but O'Sullivan only got a dozen points to stop scoring.
In the stalemate, O'Sullivan attacked the red ball bottom pocket from close range one second and conceded the color ball the next.
Ding Junhui scored 58 consecutive points and interrupted the score, after a defensive round, Ding Junhui lost the far platform, was picked up by the Rockets to reverse the game, the original 3-1 score became 2-2.
In the 5th set, Ding Junhui made a fatal mistake in the ball and pushed the simple red ball to give way, however, O'Sullivan only scored 47 points to give up the situation.
Ding Junhui failed to score the last side library red ball after scoring 60+ consecutively, and in the defensive competition, O'Sullivan decisively attacked the top library red ball and hit it, once again staged a single-set reversal and took the lead in grabbing the match point 3-2.
In the end, O'Sullivan defeated Ding Junhui 4-2 on aggregate to advance to the round of 16, and the quarter-finals will be the winner between Yan Bingtao and Wharton.