For a snooker player, the club is his life, and once the club is affected, it is bound to affect his state. But not necessarily for the top snooker players, such as rocket O'Sullivan. In the game against Maguire, the Rockets spent a lot of time repairing their clubs on the spot due to a serious mistake in the game, and even lost attention. For the Rockets' move, the famous white questioned: What if the opponent is Higgins?
The Third Round of the World Championships was a focus battle played against Maguire by second seed O'Sullivan. Previously, O'Sullivan eliminated Gilbert and Allen, and Maguire eliminated Murphy and Zhao Xintong. The two men's past record is one-sided, with O'Sullivan having an overwhelming advantage of 19 wins and 4 losses. At the World Championships, O'Sullivan also won all three games.
Because of this, O'Sullivan won 6 consecutive sets in the first stage, leading 6-1 at one point. The second stage was a replica of the first stage, with the Rockets losing two innings in a row and taking a 11-4 lead at one point. Without the Rockets' last-minute efforts, Maguire would have struggled to pull the score to 5-11. But even so, the 11-5 score was enough to ensure that the Rockets easily advanced to the next stage.
Perhaps due to the big lead, the Rockets' attention was distracted during this game. It turned out that in the 12th inning, O'Sullivan had been fiddling with his club in a chair for a long time because of a serious mistake. After the game, he also admitted that despite the lead, his performance was not good, at least not up to his expectations.
For the Rockets' long time fiddling with the clubs at the game site, Jimmy White, who works as a commentator at Eurosport, said: "The Rockets have performed well throughout the season, and the lead over Maguire is also huge. But if the next opponent is Higgins, he can't play like that. Apparently, White thinks the Rockets would have a hard time winning higgins if they lost attention like this one.
Perhaps hearing White's question about himself, the Rockets responded in an interview after the game: "As long as the club doesn't burst, I can continue to use it." I've used worse quality clubs, but I can still win. "This response from the Rockets is really domineering. The course of the game also confirmed that even if there is a problem with the club, even if there is a loss of attention, he can still easily eliminate the latter. Perhaps the main reason why he was distracted in the game for a while was not that the club was not good, but that the opponent was not strong enough to allow him to concentrate enough.