Ronnie O’Sullivan names his ‘most important’ tournaments ahead of UK Champ final

The seven-time world champion raced into a 2-0 lead before Vafaei pulled the match level by winning the next two frames, including an impressive century break.

But O’Sullivan went on capitalise on Vafaei by winning the next four frames to secure his place in his ninth UK Championship final.

O’Sullivan will now play either Judd Trump or Ding Junhui on Sunday.

‘It was acceptable, I suppose, something to work with, there was a few there I could take what was there but the dynamic stuff wasn’t there,’ O’Sullivan told Eurosport after his win.

‘But you don’t have to be sometimes, steady is alright.

‘He played strong in all his other matches scoring well.

‘He didn’t bring that sort of game. From 2-0 to 2-2 he did but after that he missed a few, it made my job a bit easier.’

When asked where he ranks the UK Championship in the snooker calendar, O’Sullivan replied: ‘I think the most-important tournaments for me are the ones where I have good relationships with the promoters because I go there and they make the time really good.

‘To me, it’s not a matter of how big the tournament is it’s about do you get well looked after when you go to a tournament?

‘I just find in Asia and Thailand, places like that, when we go abroad you get much better looked after, so I enjoy them just because of that.

‘It doesn’t matter where I play snooker, if it’s in a snooker hall in China or Thailand, a snooker table is a snooker table, but if you’re looked after better somewhere you go then I always prioritise those tournaments and I just fit whatever I can around them.

‘I’m not really bothered about missing too many of the leisure centre events, I don’t really like playing in them. If I do alright in the big events then I don’t need to play them, but if I don’t do so well I can always nip down to Brentford Leisure Centre and try to hit a few balls.’

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