RONNIE O’Sullivan has won the fourth PartyPoker.com Premier League mini-tournament following a 3-1 victory over Ali Carter in the final at The Dome, Doncaster.
The 35-year-old, who has won six of the last seven Premier League campaigns, goes top of the league following his victory.
The final got off to a scrappy start as both players struggled with their safety game and squandered opportunities to score heavily in what was easily the poorest frame of the night. Carter eventually took it, but he was unable to reproduce the sort of form that saw him whitewash Ding Junhui 3-0 earlier in the evening.
The second frame saw a feast of safety excellence from both players, before O’Sullivan made a break of 37, leaving his opponent needing a snooker with just pink and black remaining. Carter succeeded in tucking the cue ball tight behind the black but was unlucky in fluking the pink, which handed the frame to his opponent.
O’Sullivan, who beat Matthew Stevens 3-0 in just 28 minutes to book his place in the final, went into a 2-1 lead with an entertaining break of 68.
The match came to an extraordinary and bizarre end when Carter made three consecutive misses to hand the match to O’Sullivan. With the cue ball close to the yellow pocket and with plenty of reds available, Carter tried to make the thinnest of contacts, but the cue ball missed and clipped the knuckle of the right middle before landing on the opposite side of the table.
His second attempt saw an almost identical outcome, and referee Paul Collier was forced to warn him that his third opportunity would be his last. Astonishingly, he attempted the same shot again, and although the cue ball took a slightly different route, he still failed to make contact with the reds and the match was O’Sullivan’s.
Speaking afterwards, O’Sullivan, who is currently ranked 13, said: “To be fair to Ali, I was on the back foot for the whole game as Ali had me in trouble. I was just trying to contain him and hope for a chance as I was struggling to stay with him.
“I’m up for none, well down the rankings and any win is a result; happy days!”
Event four – The Dome, Doncaster (September 29)
SEMI-FINAL 1 – Ronnie O’Sullivan 3-0 Matthew Stevens
70-0 (O’Sullivan 47), 94-0 (O’Sullivan 94), 77-12
SEMI-FINAL 2 – Ali Carter 3-0 Ding Junhui
82-9 (Carter 30, 44), 120-14(Carter 50, 70), 92-0 (Carter 91)
FINAL – Ronnie O’Sullivan 3-1 Ali Carter
41-54 (Carter 34), 52-42 (O’Sullivan 37), 72-21 (O’Sullivan 68), 36-6.