O'Sullivan gains early advantage

Ronnie O’Sullivan established a 5-3 lead against Mark Selby after an opening session of high-quality snooker in the PokerStars.com Masters final.

O’Sullivan, the defending champion of the prestigious non-ranking event after beating Selby a year ago, survived a mini-comeback from his opponent to take his two-frame advantage into the evening.

The Rocket notched back-to-back centuries, either side of the mid-session interval, but Selby then took two unanswered frames, with both players looking like they were finding their best form.

This was the first major tournament since Barry Hearn’s appointment as chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, a move that has been tipped to reinvigorate the sport after a slump that has seen players disillusioned.

Hearn has already announced a world-ranking tournament in Berlin for next month and has promised razzmatazz, in the case of the Masters it has been players entering the 4,000-seat arena to music.

Selby fittingly walked on to “Underdog” by Kasabian, the band who hail from the same city as the “Jester from Leicester”. The 26-year-old took a scrappy opening frame before O’Sullivan eased himself into the contest.

Nothing is simple with O’Sullivan. Leading up to the final he beat Neil Robertson, Peter Ebdon and Mark Williams but admitted he was playing poorly enough to lose to all of them.

He was disgusted with himself for a poor positional shot in the second frame but an unfortunate in-off from Selby led to a break of 56 for O’Sullivan to level the scores.

O’Sullivan then started moving through the gears, taking a lead with a break of 86, which started with an attacking blue to open up the reds early on in the frame.

Then came his first century of the final, including taking his last red left-handed – and the mid-session interval could not come quickly enough for Selby. However, after the break O’Sullivan notched up a 101 to establish a three-frame lead.

It looked like O’Sullivan was in a hurry to wrap up victory as Selby doggedly replied with breaks of 86 and 112 to get within a frame of the defending champion.

Last year’s final was level after the first session, but O’Sullivan edged a scrappy eighth frame to establish his two-frame lead this time around.