Premier League 2011 (week 10) - O'Sullivan grabs last spot

The Premier League king reaches the play-offs

Ronnie O'Sullivan qualified for this year's Premier League play-offs after whitewashing Jimmy White 3-0 and hammering Shaun Murphy 3-1. By adding tonight's 6 points to his previous 12, O'Sullivan not only grabbed the last spot for playing in the final stages of the competition, but he also positioned himself on the first place in the rankings, with a total amount of 18 points.

At the beginning of this evening, the fact that the player who won no more than nine Premier League titles over the last past years will make his appearance in this year's semi-finals wasn't a certainty. At that point O'Sullivan's position in the rankings didn't guarantee him a safe flight into the play-offs and he needed to win at least one frame, if not two, to be sure he's got a clear road ahead of him.

Unfortunately, the Whirlwind's run ends here

His opponent was also his best friend Jimmy White, but that didn't stop O'Sullivan from winning not one, not two, but three frames (aka. the match). By hitting in breaks of 65, 39, 36 and 103 "The Rocket" flew all the way to the weekly final where he met Shaun Murphy.

Now, Murphy had a great start against Judd Trump and the fact that his match took place before O’Sullivan's, gave the "Magician" a bit more courage to try his best and win the semi-final. And so he did. Breaks of 46, 122 and 100 were enough to get Shaun three precious points and the hope that he might just get a spot in the play-offs.
Sadly for him it didn’t happen for O'Sullivan beat White and so Murphy's Premier League dream ended.

Still, the final needed to be played and it was nice to see these two lads, the very ones who disputed last year Premier League final facing each other once more.
Ronnie was the one who broke the ice (twice) by hitting in breaks of 82 and 78, but Murphy responded with a 52 to trail 2-1. Still, O'Sullivan was in the mood for "dancing" and with a perfect clearance of 100 points he ended the match 3-1 in his favour.

Shaun Murphy, so close and yet so far away

So, after 10 weeks of travelling high and low the country, the Premier League snooker caravan is stopping for a bit. Not for long though. Just to take a deep breath and see who will play who in the play-offs.
Well, that's simple. 

Considering that the first ranked player is taking on the forth one and the second one is facing the third one, the line-up for next weekend is the following one: Ronnie O'Sullivan (18 points) is facing Mark J. Williams (13 points), while Ding Junhui (16 points) is taking on Judd Trump (14 points). Easy as one, two, three...

Below you can see the players' precious points after 10 weeks of cue action:

Name	Points
Ronnie O'Sullivan	18
Ding Junhui	16
Judd Trump	14
Mark J. Williams	13
Neil Robertson	12
Shaun Murphy	11
John Higgins	11
Ali Carter	10
Matthew Stevens	9
Jimmy White	2

So I guess I will see you in Norfolk next weekend for some Premier League snooker. Any thoughts on who will be the next champion? You have a comments section below; don’t be afraid to use it.