ROCKET RON RIPS UP THE RECORD BOOKS
RONNIE O’SULLIVAN made snooker history in York last night.
A rampant Rocket made it a record 19 successes in snooker’s three major tournaments by being the first to win a seventh Betway UK Championship title.
O’Sullivan, 43, stormed to a 10-6 win over reigning Masters champion Mark Allen at the Barbican Centre to continue a blistering campaign.
He has also won seven Masters crowns, as well as five successes on the biggest proving ground, the World Championship.
World No.3 O’Sullivan is at war with supremo Barry Hearn over formats and venues on tour – and last week even threatened he could stage breakaway “Champions League” events.
That triggered a furious response from Hearn, who branded his box-office talisman “pathetic, ridiculous and selfish”.
But on the table, O’Sullivan, who pocketed £170,000 last night, has won three of the five events he has played this season – and also reached a final and a semi-final.
A limited schedule is working, and O’Sullivan has now edged ahead of Steve Davis on UK wins – and has 19 Triple Crown triumphs, one clear of Stephen Hendry.
The Rocket is also fast closing in on the world No.1 spot – a position he last occupied eight years ago.
Allen, 32, needed a good start – and got one, taking the first frame. But O’Sullivan hit straight back with a break of 101, the 986th century of his illustrious career.
The pair shared the next two, Allen with a 74 and Rocket with an 85 – but then the world No.7 let his opponent forge clear. O’Sullivan claimed the next three helped by runs of 54, 66 and 57, to lead 5-2.
T h e Northern Irishman was in desperate need of the last of the afternoon, but an unlucky split on the pack left him on nothing. After breaking down, O’Sullivan pounced to move four clear.
After falling 7-2 down, Allen (above) trimmed the deficit with breaks of 56 and 105, but O’Sullivan cleared up from 59-6 down in frame 13 and soon closed out the contest.
Hearn insists there is now nowhere for snooker cheats to hide.
Yu Delu and Cao Yupeng became the first two Chinese players to receive bans for match-fixing last week after a painstaking investigation.
And World Snooker chairman Hearn said: “We want this out of our sport.
“The message we are sending out now to Asia, as well as anywhere else, is that we will get you.
“We won’t miss it, we will get you.”