Premier League: The fire-breathing Dragon`s day

China`s Dragon was on top!

Last night was a beautiful night for snooker! Brentwood was going to see four great snooker players doing their best to impress their audience! And I think they succeeded, for the standing ovations were not in vain.


The first match of the evening was going to bring together "The Jester from Leicester" and "China’s Sensation". It was a great match! Why? Read on, my little snooker “termites” :-P. The first frame was won by Ding Junhui as he fired in breaks of 54 and 69. The second one, was won by Mark Selby after a very tight battle. The frame started with a series of safety shots until Selby left a pottable red next to the right middle pocket. This gave Ding the opportunity to make his first break of 21 but he couldn’t hold on to it for long so another safety shots series kicked off. Still, Ding succeeded in potting an incredible red to hit a nice break of 17, but lost position this giving Mark the chance to score his first points. After making a 50 points break, the score was looking like this: Ding 44, Selby 50. Only the colors were left on the table so "The Shark" potted the yellow, the brown and ... here we go again with the safety shots on the blue. Ding needed a snooker so he kept on snookering his way until he committed a foul and Selby won. It was a lot of drama and a lot of tension in this frame!


The next three frames were Ding’s! There’s no doubt about that. He won the first one with a break of 78 in only 9 minutes, the second with a break of 69 and the third with a beautiful 103! It was pure madness! The Dragon was awake, kicking and shouting! Mark was sitting in his chair, for Ding didn’t give him the opportunity to come even two inches close to the table. The little Chinese was on a mission! A mission to take his share of victory at the Premier League!
However the last frame was won by Selby, who failed in completing a century break as he missed the black and scored only 97 points. So close!

Selby`s got the blues :-(

Final score 4-2, for Ding the Dragon! What a spectacular comeback into the ranking system! What a match and what a marvelous performance! You can’t say that Selby played bad but he was just not given the chance to play...at all for most of the time! :-P The little but also mighty Chinese proved that Asia is ready to conquer a world title any time now. ;-)


The second match of the day was the one that we all have been waiting for. "The Rocket" was going to face “The Magician". And maybe this match wasn’t going to be such a big deal if there weren’t for Murphy’s latest statements (you know the "unprofessional, pathetic and disrespectful" story).
First to enter the arena was Ronnie and he seemed pretty cool and in a good mood. When he was asked if he reads the papers, he said that he does, but he doesn’t buy all the crap that he reads, for he knows that the media tends to twist the story so they can make some rating. Finally he added that he is pleased to see that in most of the interviews given by snooker players his name appears :-)) Good point, champ!
Next in line, was Shaun who was also asked if he reads the newspapers...and I was pleased to see that he didn’t deny having said all those things about Ronnie, he didn’t play the "out of the context" card; he said that he is happy the guys from the newspaper didn’t misspell the words and he stocked to his story. He said that he didn’t like what he saw at the World Open and that Ronnie is saying one day that he likes playing snooker and the next that he doesn’t...so it’s hard to make an opinion over that. Pretty strong point, there!

The "Magic v. Science" battle ended on a draw

They shook hands and the match started. The first frame was going to be filled with tension, as the commentators were comparing the grudge between the two to the one between Alex Higgins and Dennis Taylor (you know, after Alex threatened to have Dennis shot). Shaun made a very nice break of 44 only to miss the red and giving Ronnie a chance to come to the table, by doing so. At a 37 break, "The Rocket" missed a red and the safety shots battle begin. “The Magician" was able to fluke a red into the middle right pocket but missed the brown, so Ronnie took the lead, clearing the table for 1-0.


The second frame started with some really crappy shots from both players, as they were constantly missing the same red ball, but Shaun succeeded in potting it and making his first 14 points. Soon after that he missed the red (again, the red!) but Ronnie missed it too, so Shaun was able to return to the table and hit a 90 break to make it 1-1.

Ronnie O`Sullivan - The Dalai Lama of snooker :-)

"The Rocket" was going to take the lead the next frame, with a beautiful break of 93, but "The Magician" was going to fight back with a 71 one. At 2-2 things get complicated, for you either take the lead and stay there for the next two frames, either you don’t and you get a draw (if you’re lucky enough). In the end, Shaun won the frame to take the lead (3-2) for the first time in this match. But "The Rocket" was on fire in the last frame, as he hit a wonderful 110 break to win another frame and another match by the same scoreline 3-3.


At the end, Shaun made a very funny remake as he called Ronnie "the Dalai Lama" since he was playing very cool and he was very calm, Ronnie being terrible amused by the comparison. Also "The Rocket" seemed not to have hard feeling for Shaun as he said that he also declared some nasty stuff through the years, so he is ok with the standing situation. Very mature of Ronnie, if I may add!


So this was it for Brentwood, for next week Inverness is going to have its share of snooker.
It was definitely Ding Junhui`s big day as the mighty fire-breathing dragon dominated the match against Mark Selby. But it was also a day where two great players acted mature enough to not hold a grudge against each other and give their best. Shaun Murphy and Ronnie O` Sullivan played great snooker! Pure class!