Ronnie O'Sullivan 'didn't turn up' in Players Championship loss to Neil Robertson, says Stephen Hendry
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Published 10/02/2022 at 23:11 GMT
Neil Robertson proved too good for Ronnie O'Sullivan as he booked his place in the semi-finals of the 2022 Players Championship. Robertson made four half-century breaks in the win and will next face Jimmy Robertson or John Higgins. Seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry gave his verdict on O'Sullivan's performance.
Ronnie O'Sullivan
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Stephen Hendry said Ronnie O’Sullivan "didn’t turn up" after he was beaten 6-3 in the quarter-finals of the Players Championship by Neil Robertson.
O’Sullivan was unable to reproduce the impressive performance that saw him past Judd Trump in the previous round.
The Rocket missed several balls as he fell 4-1 behind against Robertson, who looked in good touch from the start.
Even though O’Sullivan managed to claw his way back to 4-3, Robertson pulled away and secured his place in the last four of the tournament.
“Ronnie just didn’t turn up,” said seven-time world champion Hendry on ITV
“Neal Foulds made a point on commentary that Ronnie is not putting two or three of those performances together in a row is he?
“The first frame was quite slow and he doesn’t like that side of the game.”
O’Sullivan was also beaten by Robertson in the quarter-finals of the Masters last month.
“He was good,” admitted O’Sullivan.
“I dragged him down to my level a bit and he missed a few and allowed me to get back into it. He was much the better player and I just tried to hang in there and see what happened. When you start snatching at shots it’s hard.
“If you don’t cue the ball smoothly it becomes a difficult game. Neil is an incredible cueist and gets through the ball so well.
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“You have to cue well and play well to stay with that. I was bits and pieces. I suppose that’s what happens later in your career, you get a few more matches that are not really good enough.”
Robertson, who made four half-century breaks, will await the winner of the last quarter-final between Jimmy Robertson and John Higgins.
The winner of that match will face either Ricky Walden or Barry Hawkins in the final.
Reflecting on his performance and having most of the crowd against him, Robertson said: “Any little mistake I was making or any sign of giving him any encouragement the crowd were taking the opportunity. A lot of players struggle in that environment but I’ve played him enough now to expect that.
“A good way to silence them a bit is a really good start and that’s what I got off to, going 4-1 in front playing really well, unlucky not to get 5-1 maybe. Couple of disjointed frames, I finished it off quite well in the end.
“It is important to get off to a good start because the way he plays the game he is never going to slow things up and make the frames scrappy. He will keep going for shots. I don’t think it matters what tactics or gameplan you have against Ronnie, you have to score, if you don’t score he will beat you no matter what.”
Robertson also said he felt conditions changed as the match wore on and the table started to slow down drastically.
“The table in the second half of the match was really tough to play on, it was so slow, it was incredible,” he said.
“I could feel the ripples in the cloth. It was really tough to move the white around and Ronnie is probably the best player I’ve seen at adapting to conditions and he maybe started to handle it a bit better than me, fortunately for me he missed a few tough balls into the middle.”
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