The final of the Shanghai Masters sees the defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan taking on the former champion of the world Shaun Murphy over the best-of-21 frames and two sessions of play out in China on Sunday.
A decent first prize awaits the winner of the match as well as the other benefits that go with winning a tournament, especially should Murphy come out on top. Both men have played well this week and should make up a decent final.
Ronnie O’Sullivan
When O’Sullivan trailed Neil Robertson 5-4 at half-time in their semi-final, he could have been forgiven for thinking this wouldn’t be his week but for the second match in succession he battled back and in the end he ran out a pretty convincing winner, and the way he played in the second session you just get the feeling he is ready to produce some of his best snooker in the final on Sunday.
O’Sullivan has a decent record in this part of the world and it might just be that he feels invincible in this place. The events of the last two matches will certainly have done nothing to take away those feeling it has to be said. He looks to be scoring nicely and you have to say that he is very much the man to beat in this final.
Shaun Murphy
For the second Chinese event in a row Shaun Murphy has made the final. He could offer up no challenge to Judd Trump in the first one and you would think he will have his work cut out if he is going to fare any better in this one. That said though he has nothing to lose so if he can get his scoring game into gear then he probably shouldn’t be ruled out necessarily but he is a clear outsider in the game.
Nobody can argue that Murphy doesn’t deserve his spot in this final. He has seen off four competent players in this tournament in the form of Lu Haotian, Mark Williams, Jack Lisowski and Mark Allen. He has outplayed the last two to the tune of 16-4 in frame count so Murphy must be brimming with confidence. I’d like to see Murphy go all out and attack this final. I don’t think his safety is good enough to win it any other way.
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Head-to-Head
There have been 18 past meetings between these two men and it is O’Sullivan who leads the way in their personal history. He has 13 wins to the four of Murphy while there has also been one draw. As you would expect that is reflected in the frame scores where O’Sullivan is currently 119-75 in front. The pair have met in five previous finals but O’Sullivan only leads them 3-2 so Murphy clearly ups his game in the finale of an event. He won the 2017 Champion of Champions final between the two but has lost their last two finals since then.
Betting
I expect Ronnie O’Sullivan to win this match although I’m not going to be completely surprised if that isn’t the case given how well Murphy has seen off his recent opponents. I’ve just got to think that over this distance the extra consistency of O’Sullivan will win the day. He can maintain his form for lengthy periods of frames whereas I’m not sure Murphy can and that can be the difference between the two.
However we won’t be getting rich backing O’Sullivan to come through here so I’ll take over 13.5 50+ breaks for this final instead. Even if Murphy gets well beaten you’ve got to think he’ll get five or six frames so that is 16 or 17 in total. Whenever these two play they both play in such an open way that the balls tend to stay in scoring positions. Their last few matches have seen nine 50+ breaks in nine frames, 13 in 14, 14 in 15, 15 in 18 and 17 in 20 frames. Those are all ratios that if we get the expected 16/17 frames should see more than 13.5 50s in the match. Any more frames than that and the over should land comfortably.
Tips
WON – Back Over 13.5 50+ breaks for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfair
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