The last ranking match of 2021 takes place on Sunday when Neil Robertson meets Ronnie O’Sullivan in the final of the World Grand Prix as the opening Cazoo Series event comes to a close inside the Ricoh Arena in Coventry.
These two men are no strangers to competing in finals for big titles and they will both be looking to end their year on a high so we should be treated to a wonderful day of snooker in this best of 19 frames contest.
Neil Robertson
The English Open champion will be looking to add another title to his collection in this final and having missed the Scottish Open last week and put up a poor defence of his UK Championship title the week before because of health issues, it would appear those are behind him and he can just concentrate on winning this final. He has the advantage of having had a day off between his semi-final win and this final so you would think he has plenty going for him.
Robertson came through a pretty tame early draw with Noppon Saengkham and Anthony Hamilton offering little in the way of resistance but he had to overcome a tough showdown with Yan Bingtao in the quarter final before showing all his class in a comfortable semi-final over Mark Selby. He was very aggressive in that semi-final and scored well and if he repeats that level of performance here then he is entitled to be right in the game here.
Ronnie O’Sullivan
The six-time world champion goes into this final looking for his first title since he won his last world crown last August. This will be the sixth time he has made it to the final since then but he is 0-5 for his last five concluding showdowns. I wouldn’t expect that sort of thing to bother him but the one disadvantage he does have here is his semi-final was on Saturday evening so he’ll be almost straight into this final.
That is a disadvantage because he hasn’t exactly played his best stuff in this tournament so far. We know full well that if he can find his best snooker he is more than capable of taking this final down but he’s been fortunate that the only top 16 ranked player he has played so far this week is Stuart Bingham who was so bad in their semi-final it was untrue. O’Sullivan fans will be hoping that lower expectation can lead to a better performance.
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Head to Head
These two have met on 27 past occasions with O’Sullivan well in front with 17 wins to the nine of Robertson. They have also played out one draw in that time as well. O’Sullivan leads by 27 frames in their past meetings too at 151-124 which suggests he has won a number of fairly comfortable matches. This will be the seventh time they have met in a final and they have each scooped three wins from the previous six. They have played each other three times over this best of 19 frame distance with O’Sullivan leading in those matches too. He has won two and lost one. Some comfort comes the way of Robertson in the knowledge that he has won their last two matches.
Betting
You can never rule Ronnie O’Sullivan out of a snooker match but his record against the top players since he won that world title last year is very poor. These two met in the Tour Championship final earlier this year and Neil Robertson powered to a 10-4 win and unless there is a big improvement out of the Rocket in this match then I would imagine the Australian will win by a similarly emphatic score here. We know Robertson is scoring well and that is something O’Sullivan hasn’t done as well this week.
There is no doubt in my mind that O’Sullivan is struggling to find his best snooker. Whether that is down to his high expectations or the amount of beatings he has taken from top players recently I’m not sure but it isn’t coming out at the minute. He is just so good he is still good enough to win most of the matches he plays. That tends not to be the case when he meets the elite though so I’ll back Robertson to win this match with a frame in hand to a decent stake.
Tips
Back N.Robertson to beat R.O’Sullivan for a 5/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
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