There was some brilliant play today at the Shanghai Masters as we had just about everything one could wish for. Comebacks, maximum breaks and fantastic tactical play. The tournament has really been set on fire after today’s session.
Ronnie O’Sullivan opened up his Shanghai Masters campaign today playing against Liang Wenbo. It was always going to be a tough draw for O’Sullivan who hasn’t played competitively since the World Championships in April.
It was Wenbo who got out of the blocks first taking the first frame, but O’Sullivan managed to level things up with a break of 84. Wenbo took the next three frames to take a 4-1 lead over O’Sullivan, who didn’t look match fit.
But O’Sullivan is one of those players you can never rule out of any match, and just as it seemed all over for him, he took the next 3 frames to level the match up.
In the final frame, Wenbo had his chances, but it was O’Sullivan who took his chances and won the match 5-4 in dramatic style.
The other big news from this afternoons play at the Shanghai Masters was that Stephen Maguire was in top form making a maximum break in the third frame against Yi Chen Xu. Maguire can now claim the rolling maximum break prize that World Snooker are giving away. But his form continued for the entire match as he also made breaks of 130, 104 and 50. This is the best performance from Maguire in some time.
Across the way on the other table, Mark Selby had a convincing win over the young Yuan Sijun beating him 5-1. The Chinese player managed to make a century break in the fourth frame, but with solid play and breaks of 76 and 52 from Selby, Sijun found it hard to compete.
Stuart Carrington was another player in top form today against Niu Zhuang as he made breaks of 141, 76, 135 and 76 to seal a 5-1 victory.
