On January 8, 2024, Beijing time, the Snooker Masters is in full swing, and in the previous games, Shaun Murphy and Lisowski defeated Zhang Anda and Brecel respectively to advance to the top 8. This match day will usher in the 35th "Ding Olympics" that fans have been highly anticipated for, with world No. 1 O'Sullivan and "China's first brother" Ding Junhui competing for a place in the top 8, while Mark Williams will face "Captain" Ali Carter.
Zhang Anda
"Chinese Dragon" Ding Junhui is the best snooker player in China, and he has made outstanding contributions to the promotion and development of snooker. It is precisely because of Ding Junhui's young fame that Chinese snooker players have emerged in a blowout, although nearly 10 players of the Chinese army were banned last season, but there are still more than 20 Chinese players playing in the professional snooker arena.
Ding Junhui became famous at a young age, and at the age of 18, he passed all the way to the final of the China Open as a wild card player, defeating the "Billiards Emperor" Hendry at his peak to win the championship. In the same year, in the British Snooker Championship, Ding Junhui defeated the old football king Steve Davis with a big score of 10:6 to win the championship, becoming the first non-British player to win the British Championship. In his later nearly 20-year career, Ding Junhui won 5 ranking championships in a single season and was the leader of the "80 Five Tigers". In recent seasons, Ding Junhui's form has declined seriously, and he has not won any ranking tournaments since winning the British Championships in 2019.
Ding
O'Sullivan, the genius of snooker, has completed seven Grand Slams in his career, and won the eighth British Championship title in his career this season, which is one step closer to the eighth Grand Slam. If he wins the Masters, O'Sullivan is only one World Championship away from completing the eight-lap Grand Slam, far behind Hendry, who is in second place, with a five-lap Grand Slam. O'Sullivan has won 40 ranking tournaments in his career, far more than the 36 of second-placed Stephen Hendry, and the current player Higgins ranks third with 31 ranking tournament titles.
As he grew older, his physical strength and energy made O'Sullivan unable to adapt to high-intensity and intensive competitions, and in recent seasons O'Sullivan has participated selectively in competitions, focusing on the three major tournaments and invitational tournaments. O'Sullivan has only participated in 5 tournaments this season, including winning the Shanghai Masters and the British Championships, ranking second only to Trump in a single season. Recently, O'Sullivan has participated in the Macao Masters and Lhasa Exhibition Tournament successively, which is a huge challenge for O'Sullivan, who is nearly half a hundred years old.
O'sullivan
At the beginning of the game, in the first game, Ding Junhui took the lead to take a 23-point lead, and then made a defensive mistake, O'Sullivan seized the opportunity to get started with a single stroke of 67 points to achieve a super score, but unfortunately the cue ball fell into the bag. Then Ding Junhui made an offensive mistake, and O'Sullivan scored again, and finally got off to a good start with 100:27. In the second game, Ding Junhui scored only 29 points in three shots, and then forced O'Sullivan to be penalized 8 points with a high-quality snooker. In the dogfight, O'Sullivan scored and handed over the ball with a single stroke of 44 points. At the critical moment, Ding Junhui made an offensive mistake, and O'Sullivan scored again, and finally won the next game 74:37, leading 2:0.
O'Sullivan vs Ding Junhui
In the third game, Ding Junhui took the lead and lost the black ball in the middle bag with a single stroke of 32 points. In the struggle, O'Sullivan accurately started from the platform, and scored 87 points in a single stroke to win the game, leading Ding Junhui 3:0. In the fourth game, O'Sullivan took the lead and won the game with a single stroke of 100 to achieve a super score, leading 4:0. In this game, Ding Junhui basically took the lead in every game, but his ability to score continuously was not good, and he was unstable and pulled his hips on the long platform. On the other hand, O'Sullivan, the long platform is accurate, the ability to score continuously is strong, and the accuracy is online, so O'Sullivan estimates that Ding Junhui will have another round of tours. Last time in the Lhasa exhibition match, O'Sullivan was overturned by Ding Junhui in 5 consecutive games with a 5:1 lead, and I don't know if there will be another miracle this time.