Snooker: ‘Rocket’ on track for world crown

Ronnie O’Sullivan is poised to succeed where his great friend Jimmy White failed by lifting the Embassy World Championship crown.

White, beaten six times in the world final at Sheffield, will be amongst the spectators at the Crucible Theatre as O’Sullivan aims to press home his advantage against John Higgins.

The Whirlwind was the most naturally gifted player of his time - as is O’Sullivan amongst the current players - and it was a travesty that he never wore the ultimate snooker crown.

But O’Sullivan is favourite to make sure the same misfortune does not happen to him and he will go into the second day of the best-of-35-frame showpiece holding a 10-6 lead over the 1998 champion.

He needs only eight of the remaining 19 frames to lift the trophy that, by his own admission, should have already had his name engraved on it before now.

The player known as the ‘Essex Exocet’ experienced a mid-match blip in the opening four frames of the second session when his form, for just about the first time in the tournament, temporarily deserted him.

But he quickly put that behind him with a century and two 99 breaks on the resumption to leave Higgins facing a mountain to climb.

It will be no injustice if O’Sullivan becomes world champion as he has produced the most consistent and best snooker of the past fortnight.

Higgins, the ‘Wizard of Wishaw’ was below his best and the gruelling semi-final encounter with Matthew Stevens which did not end until late on Saturday evening looked to have taken its toll.

But he is one of the few players capable of launching the kind of sustained recovery that could put O’Sullivan, who has immense respect for his opponent, under pressure Higgins had the distinction in the first session of registering the 50th century of this year’s tournament a 135 in frame six.

But the remainder of the opening eight frames were dominated by O’Sullivan with the aid of breaks of 88, 81 and 70.

Then came the unexpected downturn in O’Sullivan’s fortunes and his highest break in the first four frames of the evening was just 48 before his game was put firmly back on track.