Ronnie O’Sullivan began his defence of his Dafabet Champion of Champions title at Ricoh Arena in typical rocket-like devastating fashion, writes Ziad Chaudry.
The 38-year-old world number 4 comfortably demolished Hong Kong’s Marco Fu 6-0 in the Group 1 to rubber stamp his semi-final place, where he will face Ding Junhui of China this Saturday.
“I was expecting a tough match but I watched a bit of Marco’s game and you could see he was struggling a little bit and tonight he struggled with his game,” said the five-time world champion from Essex who earlier in the day beat his training partner Stuart Bingham 4-2 in a re-run of last year’s final. “You have to go out there and do a job and try and get the win.
“I am pleased to still be in the tournament, this is one of the better tournaments we play in. To still be in it and have the weekend to look forward to is great.
Ding Junhui was the first man through in the semis when he defeated Barry Hawkins in Monday’s Group 4 final.
“Ding is the winner of five major ranking events last season and only Stephen Hendry has been able to do that in the past so that is a measure of the quality player Ding is,” continued O’Sullivan. “We have good games when we play each other and I like playing Ding because he plays the right shots. I will look forward to it.”
The final group of matches are on Friday from 1pm with Ali Carter making a welcome return from his cancer treatment and plays Australia’s former world champion Neil Robertson while
Ricky Walden and Mark Allen completes the preliminaries, with the two winners meeting at 7pm.
The event runs until finals day Sunday and tickets for the remaining days are available in person at The Ricoh Arena Box Office.