There are two more first round matches at The Masters on Monday and the afternoon game inside Alexandra Palace sees the world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan beginning his quest for another title when he takes on the English Open finalist Luca Brecel.
O’Sullivan is no stranger to lifting the Paul Hunter Trophy and will have a huge crowd behind him here. Brecel is the first man to go into the lion’s den and will be hoping that he can come out without getting bitten.
Ronnie O’Sullivan
All eyes will be on the Rocket in this afternoon clash. In a couple of events prior to Christmas there were signs that he was losing a bit of interest in some of the tournaments but the word on the street is that the world champion has been practicing hard for this event and putting a lot of work in and that tends to spell danger for his opponents. We know O’Sullivan prefers these elite events and when he has been putting the work in he is often very hard to contain.
Most people would have this down as a poor season even allowing for the fact that O’Sullivan won the Hong Kong Masters and the Champion of Champions. A run to the quarter final of the UK Championship is as good as it has got for O’Sullivan in ranking events but he won’t mind that. His ranking is assured for the rest of this season and the next one at the very least so he can target the events he wants to. This is usually one he goes hard after but he hasn’t won it since 2017 so he’ll be keen to end that drought.
Luca Brecel
The last season and a half have been very good for Luca Brecel. He has won the Scottish Open and ranked Championship League events in that time and also made the UK Championship final last term and the English Open final just last month. When the Belgian is on it he is one of the best players in the game and very difficult to contain but that run to the final in York aside, his Triple Crown record is very ordinary for a man of his talents.
This will be the first time Brecel has made it into this tournament since 2019 when he made the quarter final. He beat Mark Allen in the first round that year before losing in a deciding frame to Ding Junhui. This will only be the third appearance he has made in this event and the arena and atmosphere has only got bigger in the time since he last played here. That shouldn’t worry the Belgian though as he has always been a man who has loved the spotlight and being the centre of attention.
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Head-to-head
These two men have met on three previous occasions and O’Sullivan holds a 2-1 lead over Brecel. He is a lot more dominant in the frame tally though with that score being 14-7 in favour of the world champion. This will be the first time they have met at The Masters and it will also be the first time they have played over the best of 11 frames with their three meetings to date all coming in the best of nine format. We probably can’t gauge too much from the history of matches between these two.
Betting
I was in two minds about this match until the talk about the work Ronnie O’Sullivan is putting in ahead of this tournament grew louder and now I expect him to come through here. I don’t think Luca Brecel will let him have it all his own way but sometimes you don’t get a choice when the world champion fancies the job in front of a huge crowd of Londoners at this place. We have seen this crowd inspire O’Sullivan a number of times.
Generally when O’Sullivan plays well and ticks along nicely the big breaks flow so I am a little surprised that Betway have a high break line for him at just 108.5. There aren’t too many matches O’Sullivan wins in this format and in these competitions where he doesn’t register a century and while just a ton isn’t enough we only need another couple of pots on top and generally when he makes a ton he clears the table. The Rocket made two breaks higher than this line when beating Jack Lisowski here in the first round last year and I think he’ll surpass it again here.
Tips
Back R.O’Sullivan’s Highest Break – Over 108.5 points for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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