Rockets 10-4 Murphy, 5th title of the season, Hendry Ding Junhui Selby record

China Billiards Association official website news in the early morning of March 26, Beijing time, the 2018 Snooker Players Championship ended in the Welsh town of Llandudno. In the final, O’Sullivan defeated Murphy 10-4 on one side, winning the ranking for the 33rd time in his career. At the same time, this is also the fifth time O’Sullivan has won the rankings in a single season.

The Players Championship is the 18th ranked tournament of the season, and it is the penultimate tournament before the World Championships. The importance is self-evident. Since the event only accepts TOP16 players in a single season, the competition was extremely intense from the beginning. After the first three rounds of competition, O’Sullivan, ranked No. 1, and Murphy ranked No. 6, met in the finals.

The final will be conducted in two stages with a 10-win system of 19 rounds. In the first nine games of the first stage, Murphy scored 93 points in a single stroke. O’Sullivan quickly completed the adjustment, winning three straight games to overtake 3-1. After Murphy worked hard to deal with it, the gap was still getting bigger and bigger. After the first nine games, O’Sullivan led 6-3. At this stage, the two each have four 50+.

The game entered the second stage, O’Sullivan’s state further improved, scored the 10th game with 92 points in a single stroke, the score was 7-3. Not to be outdone, Murphy completed the first shot in the final with 137 points and broke 100. In fact, this became the only one in the final to break 100, and the total score was reduced to 4-7.

Murphy’s shot failed to disrupt O’Sullivan’s rhythm, but further inspired the Rockets’ fighting spirit. The Rockets then hit 54, 76, and 85 points in a row, and the Magic couldn’t breathe. In the end, O’Sullivan won the championship with a total score of 10-4.

This is O’Sullivan’s fifth ranking championship this season. The first four are the English Open, Shanghai Masters, British Championships and Grand Prix. O’Sullivan therefore became the fourth player to win five championships in a single season after Hendry (1990/91 season), Ding Junhui (2013/14 season) and Selby (2016/17 season). And if you consider that he is not participating in full attendance this season, and the Players Championship is only his personal 10th ranked tournament, the winning rate of up to 50% is even more amazing.

After winning this championship, O’Sullivan’s total number of ranking champions reached 33, which is only three steps away from Hendry’s 36 crown record. I believe it does not take much time, and this record of Hendry will probably be lost again.