Ronnie humiliates Hendry in Manchester

Lightning struck twice as a rampant Ronnie O’Sullivan breezed to a successful defence of his BetFred Premier League title in Manchester tonight.

World number one O’Sullivan, who turns 30 tomorrow, presented himself with the perfect birthday present by whitewashing a woefully out-of-form Stephen Hendry 6-0 in the final.

That came only seven months after O’Sullivan, in the very same MICC Arena, trounced Mark Williams 6-0 in the semi-finals of last season’s Premier League.

Having won 27 frames in the qualifying phase of the event, compiling 10 century breaks in the process – all at £1,000 (€854.75) a time – the £50,000 (€42,738) first prize swelled O’Sullivan’s total earnings for the tournament to £87,000 (€74,360).

He said: “It’s always great to do well in this competition because wherever we play around the country the crowds are always big.

“Anyway, lifting any trophy is a real boost. You never know when the glory days will end.

“If Stephen had played to his potential it would have been much closer and maybe he could have done something similar to me. He just had one of those nightmare nights.”

“It was embarrassing at the end. I just couldn’t seem to do anything right,” admitted Hendry, who produced only a workmanlike display in scoring a 5-2 victory over Chinese teenager Ding Junhui in the other semi-final.

“I didn’t play well against Ding but I thought the occasion tonight and the fact that I was playing Ronnie would get me fired up. It didn’t. I was awful.”

O’Sullivan has now captured 34 career titles and the latest success was his fifth of the year.

Since 1997, he has won the Premier League five times.

“It’s always a bonus to win tournaments but whatever had happened out there I would still have fancied my chances at York,” added O’Sullivan, referring to the Travis Perkins UK Championship which gets underway tomorrow.

O’Sullivan goes into the event top of the money list for the 2005-2006 season, having pocketed £121,000 (€103,434) so far.