Ronnie O’Sullivan continues to come up trumps
Judd Trump may have begun to wonder just what all the fuss was about over Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Trump had beaten O'Sullivan at the UK Championship and the Masters this season and might have been thinking that it was all a bit easy.
Not anymore. The Rocket has been firing like old in the past couple of weeks, starting in the German Masters, and he won his eighth consecutive match to reach the semi-finals of the Welsh Open in Newport.
Forget having to qualify for the world championship, in this form O’Sullivan will be the man every other player will fear. The next man to try and stop him will be Mark Selby, who beat Stephen Maguire 5-3 in their quarter-final.
Trump started with a break of 109 but O'Sullivan replied with breaks of 101 and 88 to lead 2-1, before Trump knocked won the fourth frame with a 63. Then O'Sullivan turned in a 139, which included 14 reds with 14 blacks, only for Trump to level the match at 3-3 with an 88.
O'Sullivan led 43-0 in frame seven when he missed a tricky red to a centre pocket, but still came away with the frame. Trump had two chances to counter-attack, but first ran out of position then missed a simple green and O’Sullivan clinched the match with a 61 break in the next frame.
"Judd's a fantastic potter, he plays differently to the other players and just when you think you've got the balls safe, he knocks in a long one," O'Sullivan said to worldsnooker.com. "When he made it 2-2 I felt he had the momentum, but then after the interval he seemed to be feeling the pressure and certain shots were not going in.
"His breathing got a bit heavy, which I had not noticed before. Sometimes you just sense that your opponent is feeling it. That gave me the confidence to step up a gear. Maybe he felt a bit of extra pressure because he's been doing well lately so he was favourite. I still had to pot the balls, which is not easy.
"I'm under no pressure to be king of the jungle, the other younger players are trying to stamp their authority on the game. I can enjoy it more now."
In the other half of the draw, Shaun Murphy edged out Mark Allen 5-4 to earn a semi-final against Ding Junhui, who beat Stephen Lee 5-4.
Paul Wheeler
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