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Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Pink Ball

Wildey wrote:
Pink Ball wrote:I think to describe what O'Sullivan did in the last five frames against Selby this year as 'hit and hope' is a bit of a broad brush. Yes, he was certainly hitting and hoping with some shots, some quite dramatically. But what he did at the close of the match was, as I've said before, the most audacious display of snooker talent we've ever seen.

The hit-and-hope shots will be best remembered, but the vast majority of his shots were just bang on the money.

He still hit and hoped even in the frames he won he went for some brilliant pots that was odds against and got them had he just miss judged them he would be out no other player would have played like that 16-14 down it was Dodge a bullett snooker and he survived at the time i thought it was entertaining snooker no doubt but had it not worked many on here would have been criticising him for it.

There's no doubt about any of that. I was berating him after that 30th frame because it was clear he was arseing around. That's because I thought there was no way that any player, not even him, could win those last three frames playing like that.

In truth, if he's not the only player who could have done it, he's one of only a handful. It wasn't technically great snooker on every single shot, and I wouldn't expect it to work often, but he took on that approach and pulled it off as brilliantly as one possibly could.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Wildey

Well it caped off the greatest single day i can ever remember in the sport there was a lot of shaking head going on that day just couldn't believe what was happening.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Pink Ball

I think some Ronnie O'Sullivan moments get overblown, but I think what he did on Saturday night will go down with the truly great moments in snooker history: the Taylor-Davis decider, the Higgins clearance in '82, White's missed black, Thorburn's maximum, O'Sullivan's record maximum. It's going to be in rare company.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Pink Ball

Wildey wrote:Well it caped off the greatest single day i can ever remember in the sport there was a lot of shaking head going on that day just couldn't believe what was happening.

I think it was probably the sport's greatest day since the 1985 final. The McGill-Wilson decider was one of the greatest frames ever played, while the tail-end of O'Sullivan-Selby match will go down in snooker history.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Iranu

Wildey wrote:With all due respect to Kyren Selby came within a whisker of equaling John Higgins on Triple Crowns and World Championship.

I Think Selby will be a bigger player this coming season than he has been for 3 years.

Higgins must be disappointed with his TC haul overall. It seems like Selby will end up with more than him.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Selby has his strongest season since 2017.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Pink Ball

Iranu wrote:
Wildey wrote:With all due respect to Kyren Selby came within a whisker of equaling John Higgins on Triple Crowns and World Championship.

I Think Selby will be a bigger player this coming season than he has been for 3 years.

Higgins must be disappointed with his TC haul overall. It seems like Selby will end up with more than him.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Selby has his strongest season since 2017.

You're possibly right. He did improve as the championship went on. I think his win over Robertson was overrated, but there were some very unpleasant reminders of how great Selby can be in the semi-final.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Iranu

Acé wrote:
TheRocket wrote:Would you guys rate Selby as a bigger rival for ROS than Higgins? I know a few Snookerfans who think like that now because of the amount of big matches they played against each other. And the clash of styles between ROS and Selby is even more obvious and bigger than it is with ROS-Higgins.

On the other hand ROS and Higgins is the most prolific rivalry and they are from the same generation.


Ronnie-Higgins will always be the bigger one they are from the same generation and their matches span from the 90s to present, and they've played in big matches too but the difference is it's more of a respectable rivalry, ask Higgins who is his biggest rival and he'd say Ronnie

Ronnie-Selby is 2nd biggest, Selby is a generation after Ronnie but they had more career defining rivalries and the tension was higher between those 2. Funny enough Selby's biggest rival would be ROS, not Robertson or Murphy

Ronnie-Trump would be prolly be 4th biggest if you count Ronnie-Hendry as #3, Trump is like 2-3 generations after Ronnie

I think Ronnie-Selby is a bigger rivalry. The fact that they’re from different generations actually helped make it a bigger rivalry, and that they’ve had so many big matches in spite of this age gap.

Plus, losses to Higgins don’t ‘hurt’ as much, which means I definitely consider Selby the bigger rivalry personally.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Andre147

What O'Sullivan did was such a risky tactic, he didnt want to get bogged down, play on his own terms and hope for the best.

It worked, but if it didn't, many, me included, would be critising him for not trying enough.

It's a very fine margin between genius and insanity, and the display of that came on that Friday evening.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Cloud Strife

Pink Ball wrote:I think to describe what O'Sullivan did in the last five frames against Selby this year as 'hit and hope' is a bit of a broad brush. Yes, he was certainly hitting and hoping with some shots, some quite dramatically. But what he did at the close of the match was, as I've said before, the most audacious display of snooker talent we've ever seen.

The hit-and-hope shots will be best remembered, but the vast majority of his shots were just bang on the money.


Yeah I can only recall seeing maybe 2 or 3 instances of hit-and-hope in those last 5 frames, and they'd invariably end up costing him. No, what I saw was a tremendous display of controlled aggression, expecially in those last 3 frames. I wouldn't even call it kamikaze snooker, as a few have done, because it wasn't.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Wildey

Cloud Strife wrote:
Pink Ball wrote:I think to describe what O'Sullivan did in the last five frames against Selby this year as 'hit and hope' is a bit of a broad brush. Yes, he was certainly hitting and hoping with some shots, some quite dramatically. But what he did at the close of the match was, as I've said before, the most audacious display of snooker talent we've ever seen.

The hit-and-hope shots will be best remembered, but the vast majority of his shots were just bang on the money.


Yeah I can only recall seeing maybe 2 or 3 instances of hit-and-hope in those last 5 frames, and they'd invariably end up costing him. No, what I saw was a tremendous display of controlled aggression, expecially in those last 3 frames. I wouldn't even call it kamikaze snooker, as a few have done, because it wasn't.

What made it even more kamakase the way he played in those last 3 frames was because according to him his cue action was non-existent but somehow he potted them all that was a lot of risk with a rubbish cue action.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Holden Chinaski

The pots Ronnie made under pressure in the last three frames against Selby blew me away. I have seen Ronnie do a lot of crazy sh*t like that time he made the 147 in the decider... But he really surprised me this time. It was magical. Only absolute greats can do that. To have the bottle to go for those pots.. To be able to have a straight cue action under so much pressure.. Unbelievable.

It was truly one of the best days of snooker ever. The other semi was fantastic as well.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Wildey

Holden Chinaski wrote:The pots Ronnie made under pressure in the last three frames against Selby blew me away. I have seen Ronnie do a lot of crazy sh*t like that time he made the 147 in the decider... But he really surprised me this time. It was magical. Only absolute greats can do that. To have the bottle to go for those pots.. To be able to have a straight cue action under so much pressure.. Unbelievable.

It was truly one of the best days of snooker ever. The other semi was fantastic as well.

Absolutely


it was one of the most amazing things ive ever seen in 40 years watching snooker it was on a par if not better than the Higgins 69 in 1982 because it came from nowhere.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Holden Chinaski

Wildey wrote:
Holden Chinaski wrote:The pots Ronnie made under pressure in the last three frames against Selby blew me away. I have seen Ronnie do a lot of crazy sh*t like that time he made the 147 in the decider... But he really surprised me this time. It was magical. Only absolute greats can do that. To have the bottle to go for those pots.. To be able to have a straight cue action under so much pressure.. Unbelievable.

It was truly one of the best days of snooker ever. The other semi was fantastic as well.

Absolutely


it was one of the most amazing things ive ever seen in 40 years watching snooker it was on a par if not better than the Higgins 69 in 1982 because it came from nowhere.

It really did come from nowhere. Even Ronnie himself said it was snooker from the gods. :hatoff:

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Cloud Strife

Wildey wrote:
Cloud Strife wrote:
Pink Ball wrote:I think to describe what O'Sullivan did in the last five frames against Selby this year as 'hit and hope' is a bit of a broad brush. Yes, he was certainly hitting and hoping with some shots, some quite dramatically. But what he did at the close of the match was, as I've said before, the most audacious display of snooker talent we've ever seen.

The hit-and-hope shots will be best remembered, but the vast majority of his shots were just bang on the money.


Yeah I can only recall seeing maybe 2 or 3 instances of hit-and-hope in those last 5 frames, and they'd invariably end up costing him. No, what I saw was a tremendous display of controlled aggression, expecially in those last 3 frames. I wouldn't even call it kamikaze snooker, as a few have done, because it wasn't.

What made it even more kamakase the way he played in those last 3 frames was because according to him his cue action was non-existent but somehow he potted them all that was a lot of risk with a rubbish cue action.


They were all normal shots though, weren't they? I didn't see him take on anything absolutely outlandish that he wouldn't go for under normal circumstances. Yes, they were high risk, but if the shot is there most players would go for them, I'm sure.

I think a better word to describe Ronnie's performance in those last 3 frames would be clinical rather than kamikaze.

Banging in a long red to get in and then making a fluent, frame winning break where you're never out of position. That just sounds like normal Ronnie to me.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby SnookerArcher

Acé wrote:
SnookerArcher wrote:It puzzles me why Higgins who is just over half a year older than Ronnie can look SO much older! I put it down to a health issue but never found any info on Higgins aging so much since 2011. I thought he was a generation older than Ronnie at one point!


Ronnie has Italian genes in him that gets it from his mum, i went to italy 3 years ago and the men/women look much better on average than people in the UK especially the women, it's MILF town over there


:-D Yeah my dad often comments on Ronnie, he's foreign! He thought he's turkish or something because of his darker skin, yeah I know his mum is Sicilian or part so, her name's Maria iirc. I read somewhere from someone claiming to know Ronnie well that his mother's lovely, it's Ronnie Senior that's bad for him... (None of us doubt he's negatively affected his early career)

Aside from Ronnie being fit, much more than could be said for a lot of the tour, I did read a while back Glasgow has a bad life expectancy for men, 60+, worst in the UK due to booze and violence but with John there are older scotsmen in snooker, McManus looks more like Ronnie than John and he's older than John he's pushing 50... Hendry looks younger than John IMO well he's looking older now but anyhow he's aged better.... Just wondered where that aging came from, he looked okay in 2011 his last TC and world title, perhaps a guilty conscience of swallowing £300k? HEHE. Maguire who's nearly 40 definitely looks much younger than Higgins though they're 6 years apart.
Williams who is older looks younger than John too. Martin Gould looks a lot older than his real age.

I'm chinese so I'm aware of aging disparities between cultures, anyhow Higgins looks awful, what a transformation from that baby faced boy he was all those years back.

With someone saying Ding becoming the first Asian world champion, hehe Ronnie can part claim that, he says xie xie a lot and does the Thai greeting! Yeah I know he was Australian last year... Ronnie loves chinese food, you are what you eat! :D

Yeah Selby's just being sour, Ronnie played a very attacking last 3 frames and it worked, well aside from the decider, same damn pocket as frame 8 as well... But yeah Ronnie played to his strengths rather than the percentages game that Selby does and once again it panned out, as it did in Northern Ireland SF 2018, if Ronnie had won from a reckless fluke, or saved himself the way he did against Kyren in CoC 2018 with that cross double snooker then yeah I can say Selby has some weight in his statement about disrespect but no, so Ronnie didn't want to play a 2hour frame that would have been agonising and frustrating, perhaps making him play bad giving Selby an easy last frame, which has happened so often for him... No he didn't play his game, perhaps Ronnie should have smashed the balls into Selby's face for disrespect hehe...

I can imagine too well if Ronnie played a safe game for frames 31-33 if he got that far, Selby would play very carefully and not give Ronnie an easy opening, they would be long frames maybe many reracks, probably put some fans in hospital from the tension. We saw how bad Ronnie played on saturday, imagine how much worse if he had to play till 2AM in 3 long frames to beat Selby!

Ronnie vs Selby clash of styles is what Hendry vs Davis should have been. For those criticising Ronnie not playing the right way, geniuses often do things differently! If Selby had Ronnie's ability I'm sure he would push the boat out a lot more than hide behind balls and picking off scraps from players mistakes as his bread and butter. He's really an anachronistic player, a relic from the 80s it's a shame Cliff is called the grinder, Selby deserves that name. I didn't watch Ebdon much in his career, he's a nutjob I know that much shouting at the table but they say he was even slower than Slowby, I'd hate to see that! (Funny thing is Selby isn't that slow when the game's open or his time to take shots it's more how he drags games out, often when it's very hopeless to win. If Ronnie takes on low % shots to speed up the match one way or another, Selby takes on low % snooker traps to waste time!)

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Jester82

To the final some words...
Congratulations to the 'old man'. So age doesn't prevent him from achievement. But I must say the actual final was against Selby.
The last two frames to make it 16-16 were breathtaking, he gave it all, very risky and lucky in the end but undoubtedbly deserved.
My crushing sense of dissapointment for Selby because he did not get his fourth, he had a good tourney though but not a great one after all.

Snooker and its glory lasts Corona.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Dan-cat

Jester82 wrote:To the final some words...
Congratulations to the 'old man'. So age doesn't prevent him from achievement. But I must say the actual final was against Selby.
The last two frames to make it 16-16 were breathtaking, he gave it all, very risky and lucky in the end but undoubtedbly deserved.
My crushing sense of dissapointment for Selby because he did not get his fourth, he had a good tourney though but not a great one after all.

Snooker and its glory lasts Corona.


Nice post Jesty.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Juddernaut88

Jester82 wrote:To the final some words...
Congratulations to the 'old man'. So age doesn't prevent him from achievement. But I must say the actual final was against Selby.
The last two frames to make it 16-16 were breathtaking, he gave it all, very risky and lucky in the end but undoubtedbly deserved.
My crushing sense of dissapointment for Selby because he did not get his fourth, he had a good tourney though but not a great one after all.

Snooker and its glory lasts Corona.


I think the 23rd frame was a massive moment. If Selby won that to go 14-9 up, he was guaranteed a 4 frame lead going into the evening session and maybe he would have win the 24th too which would have been game over.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Sidetracked

Pink Ball wrote:I think some Ronnie O'Sullivan moments get overblown, but I think what he did on Saturday night will go down with the truly great moments in snooker history: the Taylor-Davis decider, the Higgins clearance in '82, White's missed black, Thorburn's maximum, O'Sullivan's record maximum. It's going to be in rare company.


Do you mean last Friday night? I still can't get my head around it, it happened so quickly. It sure was a Crucible classic, as was the other semi-final.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby SnookerArcher

Same said for 2014 if Ronnie didn't botch that blue ending the day session of day 17, though Ronnie himself said the match was lost after the first day, only having a 3 frame lead against a weak Selby gave him some belief and worked against Ronnie, plus it was Selby's 2nd final, had it been 2007 he'd not have had the bottle to make the comeback he did here. It's long past but maybe Ronnie's QF and SF worked against him, as they were session to spares so though he's well rested, when it came down to gritty stuff Selby was better accustomed on the day having struggled to beat Robertson just hours before. It is odd all frames and sessions should be separate if not for psychology.

Ronnie played his own game in the end, it worked for him, had he tried a more cautious approach he may have still won, Selby was cold that last mini session but he's a natural player (Obviously with decades of practise but he knows what suits him, it's total nonsense those people that try to deny there's such thing as natural ability and talent) playing his natural game brought out the best in him at the right time with luck, anyway regardless still rather Ronnie wins with frontrunning, yeah comebacks are the most fun to watch but it's not good for the heart and nerves lol. Good stuff....

Semifinals often are more tense than actual finals for some reason yes, they tend to be much closer scorelines.

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby Ck147

Lou147 wrote:I just watched Ronnies max against Williams in 08 for the 1000000th time, his cue action hasn't changed a bit

That would make you nearly 60 years old if you watched it 8 hours a day, a real Ronnie fan! I just watched it, pretty cool, did you notice Robbo poke his head round and shake Ronnies hand...I did :)

Re: Betfred World Championship Final K.Wilson v R.O'Sullivan

Postby SnookerFan

Iranu wrote:It took an inspired three frames from Ronnie to deny Selby a 4th world title (in all likelihood).

I can easily see Selby winning a 4th WC. The bigger difficulty would be matching Higgins’ 30 ranking titles. 13 rankers is a big haul. Hell, I could even see him winning 5 WCs before matching 30 rankers.


Yeah.

Selby was one frame away from being in The Crucible Final, and I think that anybody who wasn't Ronnie would've probably lost to him in that match. Considering the next World Championship will probably be less than a year ago, it'd be silly to say that he can't get to four.

The bigger difficulty will be matching Higgins ranking tally, which is what I meant. It all depends on what you mean by; "being better than John Higgins". I was meaning; "Having more ranking events than John Higgins". If by better you mean; "Having a superior World Title tally to John Higgins", I guess that's possible. If Selby won the next two, he'd have more World Titles than Higgins. Again, that's probably a big ask. But not impossible.