Best career win secures O`Sullivan a record-breaking 7th Masters title!

Stephen Hendry, 7x World Champ (L), Ronnie O`Sullivan, 7x Masters Champ (C) and Steve Davis, 6x UK Champ (R)

Last Sunday (01/22/2017) Ronnie O`Sullivan became the biggest Masters champion winning the event for a record 7th time.
O`Sullivan had leveled Stephen Hendry's record of 6 wins last year, and now after a tournament that he came so close of defeat quite a few times, he has for the first time became the "owner" of one of the Triple Crown events.

Ronnie O`Sullivan said himself it was his "best win ever", but what what makes of it really the best win of his career?
Well, firstly we've got to talk again about sport's psychiatrist Steve Peters, who started working with Ronnie during the worst period of his career and revived it making him come from a player who was past his best to a player who would peak and start living his most successful years in his late 30's - by the way Steve Peters on his corner at the Alexandra Palace made a big difference last Sunday.
It's incredible how O`Sullivan can now manage the frustration of playing a bad postional shot and convince himself to play a reasonable safety shot to follow instead of giving up and doing something mad, even conceding the match like he's done before.
There's no point in thinking how much he should've won had he "mastered himself" earlier, we simply got to be happy for being able to witness his peak. Nevertheless to see him proving that at 41 you can still win big titles and break records is amazing, and now he can feel he's not an underachiever anymore.

The tournament was a nightmare for Ronnie, he had been playing fantastically well in the few months prior to it and yet Liang Wenbo came one ball short of beating him 6-4 in Round 1. Then in Round 2 he still failed to play his best Snooker but fought like a brave again to beat Neil Robertson 6-3 in a disappointing "low quality" match.
As if it wasn't enough when he found himself at 1-2 down against Marco Fu, by far the best player of the tournament, he decided to change his tip and made people like BBC's commentator John Parrott think that from that point he was going to lose 1-6. But funny things happen in sport, and the fact is that O`Sullivan came back playing his best Snooker for the first time in this year's Masters to come out on top of a high quality match 6-4.
Massively the favourite against Joe Perry in the Final, O`Sullivan found himself 1-4 down, unhappy with his tip again and up against an opponent who was long potting perfectly, playing all the right safeties and scoring heavier. Fair to say Perry had the chance to kill Ronnie and missed an easy red to go 5-1 up, but Ronnie's will to win, desire and dedication are to be admired. He leveled 4-4 in session 1 and wouldn't play a single loose safety in session 2, matching Perry in the long potting department and making sure to cut-off from his game the easy mistakes to make the most he could out of the chances he was given. In the end, Ronnie wins 10-7.
It all makes you think how much a genius is Ronnie. How many players would've decided to change their tip in the middle of a semi-final? And how many could've changed it at 1-2? It was so easy for Ronnie to insist in the old tip or wait until the interval at least. But that's what geniuses do, they risk and they make history. O`Sullivan changed the tip before it was too late and took the risk it might've been a bad tip, but in the end fortune awards the brave.
O`Sullivan also admitted he thought of changing tips again during the Final, but stuck to the one had because he was winning 8-4. Ronnie's title at the Masters this year took certainly more than potting balls.


The Masters was only the first of the Triple Crown events he became the biggest winner of, he knows it himself that "there's still the World Championship record to get". But what does a 7th Masters win means to sport?

• Firstly, it's the first time someone takes over a Triple Crown event record of wins in 18 years;
• Again, it's the first Triple Crown event Ronnie O`Sullivan, the greatest of all time for me since he won his 5th World Title in 2013, holds the record of;
• O`Sullivan has now won one Triple Crown event in each of the last 6 seasons, something he had never done before,
• Such thing wasn't achieved since 1997 when Hendry established the record of winning at least one Triple Crown event for 9 seasons in a row;
• Ronnie O`Sullivan has made the Final of 4 out of the last 5 BBC events;
• O`Sullivan has made the Final of the three most prestigious tournaments played this season so far (Champion of Champions, UK Championship and The Masters), winning the most relevant one, apart from coming one frame short of winning the European Masters' Final too;
• Ronnie O`Sullivan now has won 17 Triple Crown event titles, that's one short of record holder Stephen Hendry. Playing the Snooker he is now, do somebody doubt that this record will be broken?

It was certainly more than just a piece of sporting history wrote in the Alexandra Palace this year, and even though the "Rocket" wasn't at his absolute best, for what he had to come through, the choices he had to make and what it means to win the Masters once again, yes I think it was his best ever win!



There's no time to rest though, Ronnie O`Sullivan is already back in action this week for the China Open Qualifier alongside the likes of Judd Trump, John Higgins and Joe Perry. You can follow all the action through Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook, as usual. Thanks for reading 😉