By Elliott West
“It was a great game to be involved in. It was nip and tuck all the way to the end, but it’s plain to see when it comes down to the nitty gritty I’m not good enough to close out these matches.”
Mark Williams
Introduction
Who would have thought that 30 years after they first turned professional that two of the graduates of the ‘Class of ‘92’ would still be playing at the top of their game? Well, it’s true and it took the Cazoo Tour Championship to draw two of them, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams to be pitched against each other. The Welshman, Mark Williams doesn’t have a very good head to head with his opponent, in fact, he has won one of their meetings over the years but still carried his care-free attitude prior to the encounter, not bothered if he won or lost the match. Although behind the scenes, it was clear that both players wanted to win this magical moment of top-class snooker.
The Encounter
This was a match of two halves with Ronnie being the better of the two players in the afternoon session, setting the bar with a 5-3 advantage going into the evening session. Perhaps Ronnie fans thought it was all over for Williams at the stage but how wrong they were. Coming out in the evening, the Welshman pulled out all the stops and mounted a tumultuous recovery plan, producing some frightening long ball potting. It was if the 131 and 128 breaks that Ronnie had made in the afternoon session had quickly been forgotten.
Williams made a break of 103 to win the first frame but his opponent responded with a 100 and two other century breaks of 106 and 127. In fact, the standard of safety play in this match was second to none with Mark trying to slow Ronnie’s play down with a series of carefully thought out snookers. However, Ronnie responded well to all of them and relished the encounter, clearly enjoying this rare moment of two greats meeting.
This could have been the moment that the Welshman beat O’Sullivan, only the second time in their 14 meetings over the past 30 years but in the end, the match came down to a deciding frame. A frame that was decided on a missed long pot by Mark, a weapon in his armoury that had got him to this point in the match but in the end deserted him. Ronnie took full advantage of the error and punished his opponent, making a winning break from the fatal error. O’Sullivan now marches forward into the last four stages of this tournament and sets up an encounter with Neil Robertson, a repeat of last year’s final. Both these players are now clear favourites to win this week’s event and whoever wins the next encounter, looks almost certain to pick up this converted prize at the end of this prestigious competition.
