As most of you probably realised, I was away for personal reasons and didn't the watch most of this tournament, especially the early stages, but since the Quarter-Finals I did watch most of the event and of course I've already seen on YT the other Ronnie matches...
What can I say that hasn't already been mentioned here? Not much really, all I say is as a 40 year old Ronnie is playing as good as he's ever done, this tournament in particular from start to finish he just played flawless Snooker, everything in his game, every aspect was just spot on.
Like himself admited, he played so much better here than at Masters, at Masters he had flashes of brilliance but only flashes, not really sustained form. Here he was just imperious.
At 5-2 down I knew that last frame was gonna be masive, had he been 6-2 down I realy had many doubts he would recover from there. Also the first frame of 2nd session was equally massive, if Robbo had established a 3 frame lead again, it would have proven so difficult for Ronnie to comeback from that. At 5-5, I knew Ronnie would win as Rbbo's confidence was already shattered, but still I expected it to be like 9-7 or even 9-8.
It reminded me of that 2012 Worlds match, Robbo was leading 5-3 after first session and then 2nd session Ronnie came out all guns blazzing and won 2nd session 6-2 if I remember it right.
I'm happy Ronnie has chosen to play WGP, after all (silly CL excluded) it will be his only tournament before the real test of World Championships.
So so happy with this win, it's like 2014 all over again, but I jjust hope that at Worlds he goes one better this time instead of losing the Final. But that is still 2 months or so away, right now still enjoying this win.
And everytime Higgins goes ahead of him and vice-versa, these two always and I mean always feed of each other and want to overcome the other. For me it will be very very interesting to see out of these two who will finish with most rankers. I would be more than happy if Ronnie reached 30 rankers, but of course he hasn't anyting else to prove anymore.
Congrats Ronnie