The last day of snooker before the World Championship takes place on Sunday when the final of the Cazoo Tour Championship is played out at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport as Ronnie O’Sullivan takes on Neil Robertson for the title.
These two met in the final two years ago when O’Sullivan won the inaugural event so the Australian will be out for revenge in what should be a contest of the highest quality over the best of 19 frames and two sessions of action.
Ronnie O’Sullivan
The world champion could be forgiven for thinking that his name is on the trophy having mounted a brilliant comeback from 9-6 down to Barry Hawkins in the semi-final to win 10-9 and set up this opportunity. It will be interesting to see what that battle took out of him mentally. The other thing to keep an eye on with O’Sullivan in this final is his mentality. He has reached four previous finals this season and lost the lot so he might be even more determined to win this one.
I think it is fair to say that we haven’t seen O’Sullivan at his best this week. What we have had from him has been good enough to come through but he mentioned at the start of the week that he wasn’t happy with his cue and he isn’t purring like he often does in these elite events. Whether the occasion brings the best out of him remains to be seen but you fancy he might need an improvement on what he’s given so far if he is to win the title.
Neil Robertson
Going into the week the suggestion and thought process was that Neil Robertson would be undercooked and there for the taking. I certainly subscribed to that point of view but actually he has probably played his best snooker of the season so the rest he decided to take has done him a lot of good. He will now be fully focused on winning this title for the first time and not only add to his UK Championship success but also move himself back up to number three in the world rankings.
Robertson has played the best snooker of anyone this week. That isn’t just because he has won both his matches with an awful lot to spare against two of the form men of the season, but also he is the one person who has scored well in the trickier conditions that this table has offered up. You still have concerns for him if he gets embroiled in a safety game but O’Sullivan might be the perfect opponent for him here as he is unlikely to want to get into one of them.
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Head to head
There have been 26 past meetings between these two men and much like he does over most players, O’Sullivan holds the advantage. He leads 17-8 and there has been a draw in there as well. In the frame count he is 147-114 ahead which is pretty emphatic. Robertson can take some comfort from the fact he won their last meeting which was in the Champion of Champions semi-final last season. Robertson has also been pretty competitive against O’Sullivan in finals as well. He has won two of the five they have played so far in their careers.
Betting
I thought Neil Robertson might have been a little bigger than even money to win this match but even that price isn’t enough to put me off backing him. I’ve mentioned a few times in finals this season that I’m not convinced O’Sullivan has it to beat the truly elite players in finals when they play well and so it has proved. We’ll ignore the Welsh Open final as that was one I expected O’Sullivan to win but even that he couldn’t beat Jordan Brown might prove there is some sort of issue in finals.
His other three finals have been against Judd Trump twice and Mark Selby and he never looked like winning any of them. All three got in front of him early and never let him into the match and you do tend to find that when O’Sullivan starts trailing his long game can go missing and he only gets back into matches if his opponent lets him. Robertson looks to be scoring really well this week and hitting the ball well and while I don’t think he is at his absolute peak I think he improved from the quarter final to the semi-final and if he continues that improvement I think he’ll have too much for an O’Sullivan who himself isn’t at his best even by his own admission.
Tips
WON – Back N.Robertson to beat R.O’Sullivan for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
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