On January 8, Beijing time, the first round of the 2024 Snooker Masters (1/8 finals), the focus battle, Ding Junhui vs. O'Sullivan, in the end, Ding Junhui lost to O'Sullivan 3-6 and suffered a round of tours, although Ding Junhui scored 147 points in a single stroke, but he was still out. At this point, the two Chinese players participating in the competition have been wiped out, and Zhang Anda has also been out of the game before.
Ding Junhui is the first brother in China, who has won the ranking tournament 14 times, although he has recently entered the final of the British Championship for two consecutive years, but he has failed to win the championship, and the last time he won the ranking championship was in 2019, which is a little emotional. In this Masters, Ding Junhui played as the No. 12 seed.
O'Sullivan is ranked No. 1 in the world, and is also the No. 3 seed in the tournament and a seven-time champion of the World Championships. The two have played each other more than 30 times before, and O'Sullivan has the absolute upper hand, which is relatively normal, and it must be admitted that there is still a gap in the strength of the two. In the Masters, the two have met a total of 5 times before, O'Sullivan won all of them, and this game is the 6th meeting between the two sides in the Masters, will Ding Junhui end this decline?
The first round adopts a best-of-11 format. In the first game, Ding Junhui took the lead, but the game was interrupted by 23 points, and O'Sullivan then scored 67 points in a single stroke and completed a single-game reversal of 100-27, leading 1-0. In the second game, Ding Junhui took the lead again, but scored 37 points piecemeal, and O'Sullivan played 74-37 many times and then went to the next city, with a big score of 2-0. In the third game, Ding Junhui took the lead in scoring points again, but O'Sullivan still completed a one-shot victory with a single stroke of 87 points + a single-game reversal, 3-0. In the fourth game, O'Sullivan took the lead and did not give a chance, and directly scored 106 points with a single stroke to win quickly, ending the first half of the competition 4-0.
After a short break, in the fifth game, Ding Junhui made another mistake, O'Sullivan played again to 52 points, and then sent another opportunity, Ding Junhui cleared the stage to complete the extreme reversal of 61-59 and pulled back a game to 1-4. In the sixth game, Ding Junhui scored 92 points with a single stroke and easily chased another game to 2-4. In the seventh game, Ding Junhui broke out even more, blasting out a single stroke of 147 full scores, chasing 3-4. In the eighth game, O'Sullivan scored 127 points in a single stroke and easily won the match point 5-3. In the eighth game, O'Sullivan won it in one go and advanced 6-3.