O’Sullivan Maximum marches him into the quarter finals

Ronnie O’Sullivan maximised his way into the last eight of the 888.com World Snooker championship with a 13-7 win over former world champion Mark Williams.

The afternoon session at the crucible had started with O’Sullivan leading 9-7 over night. However the fight back that was anticipated did not occur but that was mainly down to O’Sullivans magic on the baize.

In the first frame of the afternoon he notched up 71, followed by 60 in the next and then a century to lead 12-7. Then one long straight red to corner. Followed by the remaining 14 reds and 15 blacks with all the colours and O’Sullivan was £157,000 richer. The maximum marked O’Sullivans hat trick of 147’s at the World Championships and nine maximums in his career - one more than Stephen Hendry.

After the match O’Sullivan said: “It felt great, especially to get one at Sheffield it’s fantastic. Also it’s great to break one of Stephens (Hendry) records”

He did admit that after knocking the first red in he was going for the maximum saying “Sometimes you have to make things happen, I’d made my mind up” But when questioned about how he would spend his new earnings he replied: “I don’t know I don’t spend that much, I might think about it when I’m running.”

Although after making the 147, 888sport.com made O’Sullivan the bookies favourite to take the 2008 title cutting his odds to win the championship down to 6/4 ahead of Stephen Maguire who was the tournament favourite on Sunday Afternoon.

It does seem that the Rockets mindset may make him a good bet for his third world title, especially with him saying: “I just enjoy playing the game and my heart is massively in it.”

He also said: “Where ever I go around the world I get great support and I try to give them value for money, but it means everything to make another 147 at the crucible.

After the match Williams said: “If he plays like the last four frames for the rest of the tournament he will be difficult to beat.” Although he added “I lost about five frames on the black and Ronnie had struggled but there is only Ronnie who could make the 147 look that easy.”

The Rocket is now due to play Liang Wenbo the new Chinese star who on his first visit to the theatre of dreams has taken the scalps of the 1997 world champion Ken Doherty and Belfast's Joe Swail to reach the quarter finals.
By
David John Stevenson