Scottish Open 2020 - Ronnie O’Sullivan: The snooker gods were looking after me

ByMarcus Foley

Updated 12/12/2020 at 19:13 GMT

Ronnie O’Sullivan made it through to a 55th career ranking event final after a 6-4 comeback win against Li Hang on Saturday. However, the world champion was far from happy with his performance, telling Andy Goldstein in the Eurosport studio that he should not have won the match. He will play the winner of Mark Selby and Jamie Jones in Sunday’s final.

Ronnie O’Sullivan may have won five frames on the bounce to prevail 6-4 against Li Hang in the Scottish Open at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes but felt he was fortunate to get past the world number 37.

The six-times world champion at times cut a frustrated figure as he struggled for consistency as Li opened up a three-frame advantage. However, the Rocket would steady himself, winning five frames on the bounce – behind breaks of 84, 87, 93 and 59 - to seal progression to Sunday’s final.

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Yet the 37-time ranking event winner told Andy Goldstein in the Eurosport studio after the match that he was lucky to win.

I’ll take a win all day long. I should never have won it. My cue action was not great today. I was struggling. I couldn’t get any penetration through the ball.

"You can see why he beat Judd because he looked sharp and he didn’t miss much. But towards the end maybe the snooker gods up there were looking after me," he added.

“I was losing the white quite a bit and I had to stay patient.

O’Sullivan: I should never have won it

O'Sullivan changed his cue tip earlier in the tournament, and he has wrestled with his action since, but he added that he drew on his wealth of experience to compete with and eventually overhaul Li.

I had about 20 different cue actions out there. I was trying to get a pause because I was mistiming everything.

"One thing I do know is how to compete and how to somehow get a result sometimes. That’s good to have that but you need a cue action in this game to compete with the top guys in the long run.”

O'Sullivan will face either Mark Selby or Jamie Jones in Sunday's final.

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