Ronnie O’Sullivan continued his quest to be crowned the 2016 UK Champion after another convincing win at the Barbican centre York over Matthew Stevens.
O’Sullivan has been making headlines all week, and not for what he’s producing on the snooker table. Earlier in the week O’Sullivan said snooker was like a car-boot sale compared to other sports such as darts, tennis and F1.
Despite O’Sullivans tough words, it hasnt distracted him from performing on the snooker table.
Up until now, O’Sullivan hasn’t been tested much, but today’s match against the 2003 UK champion, Matthew Stevens, made O’Sullivan step back and think more than he has had to so far.
Matthew Stevens came out today all attacking, as he potted a magnificant first red and went on to score 30 before missing. O’Sullivan then cleared the table with a century break to take the first frame.
In the next, Stevens levelled up the match after a decent frame winning break, but O’Sullivan took the next 2 frames to go into the mid session interval 3-1.
O’Sullivan being the best front runner in the game continued to score and the match ended 6-2 but some of the frames were closer than the scoreline suggested.
After the match O’Sullivan was quizzed about his comments earlier in the week. Talking about the state the game is in now, and what he thinks of the 128 player setup O’Sullivan said;
“They cant’t play. No disrespect to them. Its like an amateur and pro game all mixed together and it doesn’t work”.
He also said that most of the events should be made up of only the top 32 players.
“Fans only want to see the cream of the cream playing”.
This isn’t the first time O’Sullivan has slated the lower rank players calling some of them “numpties”.
Ronnie O’Sullivan will now play either Liam Highfield or Mark Williams in the quarter final.
