The Jester from Leicester was the undoubted winner between the two last year, after knocking him out of the quarter-finals at the Crucible, and nicking the Masters crown from under his nose after trailing 9-6.
But tonight, three-time world champion O'Sullivan put a timely reminder in of who's the boss on the baize.
The Rocket ran out an easy 5-1 winner as he bids to regain the Premier League title he lost to Shaun Murphy last season.
Ronnie is the king of the shot clock, and quite simply, Selby couldn't handle him tonight. He was in one of those moods, playing the kind of fluid snooker that fills venues. Not so much for his break building. He did knock in a century and two halfs along the way, but it was his shot selection that won him this match.
He found the balance, between safety and point-gathering, perfectly.
I'm sure Selby will lose little sleep over this. You get the feeling this is no-one near the top of his priority list. He's one of those players who likes to talk about world rankings, and performances here will have no bearing on that. He'll want to save himself for when it really matters, but for Ronnie, he's won in a format he truly loves. Not that O'Sullivan is a man to ever suffer from a lack of confidence, but this win will certainly put him into a good position if the two meet later in the season at the business end of a tournament, which I must say is pretty likely.
This win means O'Sullivan tops the Premier League group going into the knockout phase, a feat that never seemed likely after he laboured through his first three games with a treble of draws against Murphy, Ding Junhui and Marco Fu. With world champion Neil Robertson, Mark Williams and Selby next up, it looked like he had it all to do just to make the cut.
But never one to suffer under pressure, he proved again why he really is still the man to beat in world snooker.
Well played Ronnie!
No comments:
Post a Comment