Ronnie O’Sullivan has equalled Stephen Hendry’s record of seven World Snooker Championship titles, thanks to an 18-13 win over Judd Trump at the Crucible.
The Rocket has been considered by many to be the greatest player of all time for some years already and now he has a share of the World Championship record, that debate appears to be over.
The 46-year-old becomes the oldest ever winner of the sport’s greatest event, beating the record set by Ray Reardon in 1978 when he was 45.
O’Sullivan came into the tournament as world number one and remains at the top of the rankings thanks to the £500,000 top prize he trousers in Sheffield.
It is an incredible record that the Rocket holds in Crucible finals, winning seven of the eight he has appeared in, only being beaten by Mark Selby in 2014.
Much of the work for the Rocket was done on Sunday evening when he forged a commanding lead in the second session of the match.
After ending Sunday afternoon 5-3 ahead, O’Sullivan claimed seven of the next nine frames to take a 12-5 lead, making a century and six half-centuries as he prospered and Trump struggled.
Trump deserves a lot of credit for how he responded on Monday afternoon, though, recovering from the dire position thanks to winning the third session 6-2 and keeping the game very much alive, with two centuries along the way.
With O’Sullivan 14-11 ahead it looked set to be a tense final session, but the Rocket won the first two frames in pretty short order with breaks of 82 and 88.
On the final of 17 days of action the two leading men were not flagging as the quality remained immense. Trump hit back with a break of 64, but the Rocket responded again with a 75 to go into the mid-session interval 17-12 up.
Trump made a break of 109 in the 30th frame of the day, keeping the game alive and surpassing the previous record of number of centuries in the World Championship, oddly enough, setting the new record at 109.
That was the last bit of Joy for the Ace at this year’s World Championship, though, as O’Sullivan fought hard to create a chance for himself in the next and made the most of it with a break of 85 to win frame, match and the title.
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