Top 10 moments of 2022/23 snooker season: No. 8 – Hong Kong Masters breaks world record in Ronnie O'Sullivan title win
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Updated 15/06/2023 at 11:09 GMT
The 2022/23 snooker season was another remarkable campaign with a smorgasbord of unforgettable memories bewitching millions across the globe on Eurosport, the home of snooker. We pick 10 of the most memorable moments from the past 10 months. Today we reflect on a world record-breaking Hong Kong Masters. Stream top snooker action live on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com.
O’Sullivan and Fu get huge reception from record-breaking crowd at Hong Kong Masters
After the conclusion of another extraordinary snooker season, we pick 10 memorable moments from the 2022/23 campaign as captured by the Eurosport cameras. You can vote for your personal favourite when we reveal our final list of contenders later this month.
No. 8 – Hong Kong Masters sets new gold standard
Ronnie O'Sullivan has played at the greatest venues in snooker over the past 31 years, but it is fair to say the vast Hong Kong Coliseum was a stand-alone sporting experience, unique in its bustling brilliance.
A crowd of just under 9,000 – a world-record attendance for a snooker match – witnessed the snooker GOAT complete a 6-4 win over Marco Fu in the Hong Kong Masters final last October.
"To have 9,000 fans watching a snooker match [is] unheard of," said O'Sullivan.
"So hopefully we can come back year [after] year, because the fans have been fantastic. It has probably been the best week as a snooker player to play snooker.
"So I just want to thank everyone for making this such a special tournament."
There have some rousing venues for snooker across the globe, past and present, in the modern televised era of professionalism.
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‘A special one!’ – O’Sullivan collects trophy after winning Hong Kong Masters
The old Wembley Conference Centre staged the Masters in London between 1979 until 2006 and would regularly manage to house 2,500 salivating snooker fans with Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, Jimmy 'Whirlwind' White and O'Sullivan helping to make the joint crackle.
In recent times, the Masters at Alexandra Palace and the German Masters at the Tempodrom in Berlin produce packed backdrops fit for elite sport while the intimacy of the World Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield continues to provide its own claustrophobic demands.
Yet there is little doubt that the Hong Kong Masters set a new gold standard with teeming crowds keen to revel in the sport's leading figures that also included former world champions Judd Trump, Mark Selby, John Higgins, Mark Williams and Ng On Yee, the three-time women's world champion.
Over 7,500 saw O'Sullivan recover a 4-1 deficit to oust 2017 winner Neil Robertson in the semi-finals of the invitational tournament with the venue mimicking Flushing Meadows for a US Open tennis match or Madison Square Garden in boxing.
As the first major sporting competition held in Hong Kong after the global pandemic, moving the event from the 3,500-capacity Queen Elizabeth Stadium enhanced audience participation to previously unseen levels.
Local icon Fu responded by laying on a 147 maximum break in the deciding frame of his 6-5 victory over Higgins in the semi-finals.
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Fu makes 147 maximum break, sparks 'deafening' celebrations at Hong Kong Masters
"I’ve been to the ATP tennis in London before and it felt something similar to that," said O'Sullivan.
"I’ve never experienced it and I didn’t think I would experience that. It is just incredible. The best event I’ve ever played in my life.
“It is a different type of nerves to the Crucible. That is evil, on top of you and intense. Here you have the fans, but there is a bit more space.
"I felt some nice nerves and I enjoyed the occasion. I wanted it to carry on, so I am disappointed the tournament is over."
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Stream top snooker action live on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com
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