O'Sullivan fails to be on cue with 147 shot

Published on Saturday 18 April 2009 20:05

RONNIE O'Sullivan rattled in three centuries and threatened a maximum 147 break but gave himself marks of only five out of 10 for his first-round win at the Betfred.com World Championship.

The defending champion eased to a 10-5 victory against his fellow Essex player, and frequent practice partner, Stuart Bingham, to become the first player to reach the second round.

Victory was never in any serious doubt once O'Sullivan rattled off four winning frames in a row at the end of the first session. He made runs of 140 – a seven-minute total clearance in the second – plus 104 and 103.

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The title favourite was also charging towards a 147 in the ninth frame, but missed the 10th black. Barring anyone else making the perfect total clearance during the tournament, that would have been worth 157,000 to O'Sullivan.

Asked to judge his performance out of 10, O'Sullivan said: "Five. Something like that. I need to make a bit of improvement to my game. Scoring was good but I never normally have problems when I get among the balls. That is my strength. It's the other areas which need a bit of improving on."

Not since Stephen Hendry 13 years ago has a champion returned to make a successful defence of his title, with O'Sullivan having claimed his triumphs in 2001, 2004 and 2008.

O'Sullivan will next be in action on Thursday, against the winner of the match between Mark Allen and Martin Gould which starts today.

The first-round clash between seven-time champion Hendry with Mark Williams, a two-time winner, could go right to the wire today. Welshman Williams produced a stirring comeback as he established a narrow 5-4 advantage after an enthralling first session.

In a repeat of the 1999 final, Hendry looked set to take a healthy lead into today's concluding session as he went 4-1 up. But Williams, who had to come through qualifying this year, was not intimidated.

And by reeling off four frames in a row he established a 5-4 lead, putting him halfway to victory in the best-of-19-frames tussle.

Another former champion was in a spot of trouble, with Scotland's Graeme Dott trailing 5-4 in his tricky opener against England's Barry Hawkins.

The crowd for Mark King's match against Rory McLeod must have wished they were on the opposite side of the arena, watching O'Sullivan and Bingham. The pair were due to play nine frames in the morning but were hauled off after just six, due to the slow nature of their battle.

Their match was called to a halt at 3-3 after a 54-minute sixth frame, with tournament officials fearing they would not manage another before the scheduled start of the afternoon session. They resume this morning.

Meanwhile, last year's runner-up, Ali Carter, was leading Northern Ireland's Gerard Greene 6-3 overnight.