O'Sullivan conquers 6th Masters crown

Ronnie O'Sullivan beat 10-1 over Barry Hawkins to win this year's edition of Dafabet Masters tournament and equalise Master Stephen Hendry's record of 6 Masters trophies.

O'Sullivan spent no less than 8 months away from professional snooker tournaments, but he did manage to cope with the pressure of a live and brilliant event such as the Masters.

Although he announced from the very beginning of the tournament that he's struggling with a "bad back" and despite not being at his best throughout the entire event, he did produce fireworks when the situation required it.

The final started with a 27-minutes frame which Hawkins won on the pink, but little did he or we, for that matter, know that this was going to be his last one too.

"The Rocket" fired a 70 break to draw level and made a superb 136 clearance down on frame three to take the lead, to which he added a half-century break (52) for a 4-1 scoreline at the interval.

Hawkins had a pretty good chance at the beginning of frame five, but he missed an early red and was unable to take advantage of his opponent also missing a red 20 points later, thus O'Sullivan extended his lead.

A pretty similar situation was brought to our attention during frame six, in the end of the session O'Sullivan using top breaks of 77 and 72 to go to an ominous 7-1 lead.

Hours later, as the players returned into the arena alongside the ref in charge Olivier Marteel, the commentators were saying that Barry needs to play for honour here, as the scoreline was surely not in his advantage.

Hawkins did try and a 35-minutes 9^th frame was a living proof of that, but things just didn't work out for him, O'Sullivan winning it thanks to a fluked pink, to which he added a set of breaks (66 and 82) to seal a crystal clear victory of 10-1.

Gracious in defeat, Barry Hawkins congratulated his opponent and openly admitted that he is very disappointed for not playing better and that is very hard to take positives from such an excruciating defeat. 

However, the fact that this is his best Masters performance, because this is actually the first time he managed to get pass the first round, must mean that better times and yet to come for "The Hawk".

The champion, Ronnie O'Sullivan put on a very honest and heart-felt smile and stated he is "over the moon" with his win and, thanks to Hazel Irvine's poignant questions, let us know he might just make an appearance at the World Championship.

So, this concludes our eight magnificent days at Ally Pally, where the history was written with each ball that was potted, missed, miscued or cleaned. 

Roll on the next tournament! ;-)