“Rocket” O’Sullivan Advances to Top 16 in World Table Tennis Championships, Fighting Illness to Win

[Sports News]The 17-day World Table Tennis Championship kicked off at Crucible on Saturday (15th). The previous champion “Rocket” O’Sullivan (Ronnie O’Sullivan) made his debut in the opening game according to tradition. Although the world’s “first brother” who is striving to break the record eight times to the throne is in a sluggish state, he is still strong enough to defeat China’s “post-2000” player Pang Junxu 10:7, reaching the top 16 for the 27th time in his career. After the game, he revealed that he is very fit. Weak, limp, felt like mononucleosis, couldn’t wait to get back to bed and rest.

As the favorite to win the championship, O’Suliyun’s performance in this battle is far from his best. He made frequent mistakes in the game. Facing Pang Junxu, who set foot on the Crucible Palace for the first time, he just seized the opportunity amidst constant mistakes and took a 5-0 lead. Advantage. In the 6th inning, Pang Junxu scored 133 points in “Po Bai”, and “Rocket” led 6:3 at halftime. After a short break, the battle between the two continued to be stalemate. Ausulliyun scored the winning point with 9:4. Pang Junxu gave it a go and hit three consecutive 70+ sticks to catch up to 7:9. The game took the lead in “initiating” 81 degrees, securing a 10:7 victory.

“Now I’m finally relieved!” O’Suliyun, who participated in the World Championships for the 31st time in his career, said frankly after the game: “When you feel good, you enjoy every moment. But tonight I feel that my state is ups and downs, It feels like glandular fever, it drains your energy, I’ve just been doggedly holding on, sometimes you need to go through these situations because you need to fight, well it’s all over, now I can’t wait to get back in bed and get well Rest.” After qualifying, the 47-year-old O’Sulliyun will compete with China’s Ding Junhui and Iran’s Hossein Vafaei for the quarter-finals.

In other races on the same day, “Melbourne Machine” Robertson (Neil Robertson) led China’s Wu Yize 6:3, Bingxian (Stuart Bingham) led David Gilbert 6:3, and Ali Carter fell behind 4:5 Jak Jones and Luca Brecel lead Ricky Walden 6:3.

This article was sponsored by “Sportsroad“Originally published on “[World Table Tennis Championships]Defeating Chinese rookies with illness and advancing to the top 16 O’Suliyun: I finally breathed a sigh of relief」