Thai on a high as Rocket crashes
O’Sullivan headed to China having gone five months without winning a match in a ranking tournament. And he was outplayed by Wattana, who produced his best performance for years to send the world number one crashing out.
“I didn’t expect that,” said Wattana, whose confidence was high after qualifying for the final stages of the 888.com World Championship last week.
“I thought I could beat him, but not 5-0. It shows you at this standard anything can happen if you play well. I don’t think Ronnie was in the right frame of mind. That gave me an advantage. It didn’t look like his concentration was there. He seemed a bit lost.”
O’Sullivan reached the Grand Prix final last October but was beaten in the UK Championship and Welsh Open first rounds. He did not enter the Malta Cup, although he did reach the final of the Wembley Masters in January, which does not carry ranking points.
This defeat means he will probably have to win next month’s World Championship to keep his number one ranking for another season.
O’Sullivan did not attend his mandatory post-match press conference but gave an interview to CCTV, the host broadcasters.
He said: “Ranking tournaments are very important because I don’t want to give up the number one spot but it looks like it’s gone. I’m very disappointed to have come here and lost.
“I enjoy coming here and wanted to stick around longer but I couldn’t make a 20 break. I’ll take nothing away from James because he played really well.”
World number 12 Alan McManus was beaten 5-2 by Jamie Cope, who missed the 15th red with a chance for a maximum in the fourth frame.
World number three Stephen Maguire suffered a 5-3 defeat to Ricky Walden, who reached the quarter-finals in Beijing last year.
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