The question that has followed almost the entire season is whether someone can take the world championship away from O’Sullivan – in most competitions, someone, especially Trump, had a chance to do so.
But even this time it was not possible to overtake the seven-time world champion, who has been sitting on the throne of the snooker world for two years now (in this respect as well). By the way, this is the longest continuous world championship of his life.
Not to mention that he can get his sixth tournament victory of the season, as he is in contention for the Tour Championship trophy. He won this tournament “only” once, although only the sixth edition is currently taking place. The trophy went to Rakéta for the first time in 2019.
Wilson will face O’Sullivan in the semi-finals. Wilson, who won two scoring competitions this season and thus had the best season of his life, won 10-8 against Mark Selby and Zhang Anda. He didn’t play brilliantly in any of the matches, but against the Chinese, he gave himself a lot of effort in the final game, pushing four half-hundred breaks in the last four frames, with only one in the entire match before that. Based on the game he showed this week, it would be surprising if he beat or even squeezed the world number one.
Ronnie O’Sullivan
Photo: WorldSnooker
Aki won 10-2 against Ali Carter in his first match. With the help of nine half-hundred breaks. He was obviously fueled by the memory of their conversation after the Masters, and it helped that he sat down to talk again with Dr. With Steve Peters, his sports psychologist. Which, looking a little ahead, will be very useful for him at the World Cup. O’Sullivan and Wilson will play the full semi-final on Friday, with the first leg starting at 2 p.m. and the second at 8 p.m.
And on Saturday, Williams, who is experiencing his umpteenth renaissance, and Allen, who is aiming for world championship laurels, will arrive. The Welshman won 10-4 against Trump on Thursday, and not only the person of the winner, but also the difference is a serious surprise. Another issue is that Williams didn’t run over Trump, it was more that both of them played sloppy when it comes to building breaks. There were a total of four half-century breaks in the entire match, which may have been the weakest match in the history of the Tour Championship. On the other hand, the three-time world champion played much better in the security game, and the close frames were regularly added to him. And there were plenty of them…
With this kind of play, Williams won’t have much of a chance against Allen in the semifinals. It looks very much like O’Sullivan and Allen’s final will be dictated by paper form, at least from what we’ve seen so far. The Northern Irish player defeated John Higgins with seven and Ding Junhui with eight half-century breaks. His performance is convincing. And if he wins this race, he will overtake Trump in the world rankings.
Mark Allen
Photo: WorldSnooker
However, it does not matter who is where in the order before the World Cup. It is certain that, as the defending champion, Luca Brecel will be the first seed. O’Sullivan is second as world number one, now that’s fixed. The question is whether Trump or Allen will be third. The formula is simple: Trump is currently in the third position, the Northern Irishman is fourth. However, if Allen wins the Tour Championship, the two will switch places. And this is interesting because the second and third seeds are placed in the same division at the World Championship, in Hungarian they can already meet in the semi-finals (the same is true of course for the first and fourth seeds). So if Allen wants to avoid O’Sullivan until the World Cup final, he shouldn’t win the Tour Championship… Another question is that he was certainly not made of such “evasive” wood.
