Premier League: "The Rocket" lands on cloud number nine

The 2010 Premier League champ - Ronnie O`Sullivan

I don’t know what you guys done this past weekend, but I know couldn’t unglue myself from my computer screen :-)) Especially last night, when the Premier League final was on! And what a final that was! Drama, tension, cool snooker, magic, rockets up in the air...everything was made by the book and even more! :-)) It was one of the most exciting night that snooker has give to me lately and that’s probably because 'The Rocket" was in such a good form and was...well, rocking! :-P


Shaun Murphy, representing the Magic of the night and Ronnie O`Sullivan, representing the Science department were the two players who desperately wanted to win this year’s Premier League trophy. And for one of them, the wish came true. If last year, Ronnie was defeated 7-3 by the Smurf, this time the good old "Rocket" took revenge and won by a beautiful 7-1 scoreline! What a wonderful victory!
But let’s see how was the evening and how O`Sullivan won this year’s shiny trophy, shall we? ;-P


First frame and Shaun was going straight to build a nice break, when he unexpectedly missed an incredible pink, allowing Ronnie to take his fist chance at the table...so "The Rocket" did his thing and hit a 74 break for a 1-0 scoreline and a wonderfully 123 break, in the second frame, to take his lead one step further.
In the next frame Ronnie only made a 23 break, due to a miss, so Shaun came to the table (after sitting quietly in his chair for an entire frame) to fire a 29 break, due to ...well, another miss in that same superior right pocket. This time, Ronnie built a 59 and secured another frame.
The forth frame was perhaps the most tense one and well...a bit scrappy to be honest, as both players struggled a lot. First Ronnie missed to pot a long red, then came Shaun’s mistake in potting another crazy red while making a 32 break, Ronnie came for a 21, then a lot of safety shots were played and finally due to a 35, O`Sullivan won yet another frame for a 4-0 lead.

The Rocket doing his thing

If I were to pick an expression to characterise Shaun’s performance from last night it will probably sound something like "great start but poorly continued". Not to offend anyone, but tonight he did a lot of mistakes, mistakes that cost him the title. One of them was committing a brutally foul, as he potted the blue along with the cue ball while he was building a pretty good break of 29. "The Rocket" fired in break of 47 and 15 and completed another victory......this was beginning to smell like a whitewash!
But the next frame was going to prove me wrong, as Shaun hit a 43 and a 20 to avoid being sent home with zero frames won.


Sadly for “The Magician" that victorious frame came a bit too late, as Ronnie was unstoppable! He continued with break of 68, 51 and 28 in the next two frames to win fair and square his 9th Premier League title!!! "The Rocket" was once again champion, and what a champion! :-)


You know what that means? It means that Ronnie is now the only player to win a professional event 9 times, beating Steve Davis' 8 Irish Masters wins! Wow! That must be something, right? :-P Hell, of course it is! It measures that fact that he is one terrific snooker player (when he wants to) and the fact that he can rock around any snooker table like no one can!
After the victory, O`Sullivan declared for SkySports: "I was just pleased to be able to play well tonight and get amongst the balls and make a few breaks. But regarding the UK Championship, he added: "It's nice to be going in there with some confidence, having won a tournament. I've beaten some good players in this tournament. The UK is a different story though; this has got a shot clock on it. To win the UK, the Masters or the Worlds, it's a different ball game altogether."

Murphy`s magic did`t work last night

Now, what more can I add to Ronnie’s victory? He is one of the best, that’s for sure, he is the master champion of this tournament as he won it nine times, he is like the Speedy Gonzales of snooker kicking that balls like crazy, he has a twisted personality but that’s what people love about him and he is definitely made to be a champion!

Congratulations "Rocket" for yet another wonderfully played match and another beautiful victory, but also congratulations to Shaun Murphy, who although didn’t performed well enough last night, he reached the final and that’s something to be considered and be proud of! :-)