Ronnie O’Sullivan was victorious today in the second round of the International Snooker Open, China as he saw off Kurt Maflin 6-4.
Just as we predicted last night, the match between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Kurt Maflin was going to be a close one. Both of these snooker players have similar games at the moment so it was always going to be closer than most would have thought.
Again from Ronnie, the match lacked much spark from the genius. In recent years we have come to expect a brilliant performance each and every time he plays, but that can’t always be the case. Today proved to be a challenge for Ronnie as he was up against a player who is better than his world ranking suggests.
In the scheme of things, O’Sullivan did play well for someone who is not in form as he admits himself. He did make frame winning contributions during the match.
Elsewhere, we spoke about the match between Neil Robertson and Anthony Hamilton yesterday. It’s quite clear that the Aussie is not at his best but he did do enough to see out his opponent earlier.
The match lacked much fire as the highest breaks seen were ranging from 50’s-60’s from each player. Robertson did have the better match-play on the day than Hamilton.
On some of the other tables, Mark Selby, Judd Trump, John Higgins, Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo all beat their opponents. From this group, it would appear Judd Trump is in the best form, clearly confident from his win in Romania a couple of weeks back.
