Rocket blasts past McManus at Masters

Ronnie O’Sullivan has another chance to improve on his recent Wembley record after bringing his Welsh Open form to the Masters tonight.

Even without hitting the heights of his 9-8 victory over Steve Davis at Cardiff eight days ago, O’Sullivan swamped Scottish rival Alan McManus 6-0.

The victory, in just one hour 50 minutes, puts him into the quarter-finals to possibly face Davis again or Dubliner Ken Doherty.

But O’Sullivan, a Masters champion in 1995, has not been beyond the last eight since losing 10-8 to Davis in the 1997 Wembley final.

“Alan and I had a tough game at the UK Championship this season when he were hanging onto each other’s coat tails,” said the 28-year-old world number three.

“And I expected some tougher snooker. But neither of us hit top form.

“It was just I played a little better and scored a little heavier.”

However, it was not a vintage display and certainly did not match the heights of Chinese newcomer Ding Junhui’s game against Joe Perry earlier in the day.

And as a result of Ding’s 6-3 win his odds on becoming champion have tumbled from 250-1 to 50-1 with official bookmakers Ladbrokes.

McManus, the 1994 Masters champion when he ended Stephen Hendry’s five year reign, made a top break of just 44.

O’Sullivan matched that effort in frame two and then added 75 for a 4-0 interval advantage.

McManus could easily have taken both of the final two frames but he allowed O’Sullivan to pot pink and black for 5-0 and then blue and pink for 6-0.

McManus had two comfortable chances on the blue to avoid the embarrassment of his first ever whitewash in 13 visits to the Masters.

But he squandered them both and later admitted: “I didn’t feel very comfortable out there and that was one of my worst performances for a while.

“I wasn’t at the races. Everyone can lose a match but when you don’t perform in a big tournament that’s the worst thing.

“This will hurt me for a while,” added the world number 10 from Glasgow.

O’Sullivan does not play again until Friday afternoon and that suits the laid-back ‘Rocket’.

“It was nice to have a chance to chill out after Cardiff,” he explained.

“I didn’t pick up a cue until last Friday and it was great. I spent the week with some good friends, eating good food and just enjoying myself.

“You want to do your best but at the end of the day playing snooker doesn’t mean that much.”