Ronnie O’Sullivan clinched his sixth world title in dominant style to end his seven-year drought at the Crucible, beating Kyren Wilson 18-8.
O’Sullivan joins Steve Davis and his former coach Ray Reardon on six world championships in the modern era, and aged 44 still has time on his side to match and even overhaul Stephen Hendry’s tally of seven.
Just like his five previous finals, it was not a close contest. Wilson was playing in his first world final and it showed, with a nervy performance that belied his true talent.
Wilson did well to recover from 8-2 down on Saturday, trailing 10-7 overnight, and he came out of the blocks fast on Sunday afternoon, winning the first frame to cut the deficit down to two.
But from there O’Sullivan took full control, playing more fluently than he had the previous day and pouncing on Wilson’s errors as the 28-year-old crumbled. In a final lacking impressive break building, it was O’Sullivan who got the better of a series of scrappy afternoon frames to lead 17-8 going into the evening and needing only one more to clinch it.
And he wrapped up the final at the first time of asking, with a break of 96 to seal number six.
Wilson was philosophical in defeat. ”I am 28-years-old,” he said. ”I am not going to beat myself up too much I am playing the greatest of all time. It was a dream come true knowing I was playing Ronnie in the final.
“You can’t respect him too much or he’ll walk right over me, which is what happened today. I have the two most important people to me sat right here.
“I am a fighter, I always will be. I really struggled in the first session and I just relaxed and let the shackles off. I’m just annoyed they would not let me play the whole match last night.”
