Ronnie O’Sullivan might have cruised into the quarter-finals of the World Snooker Championship, but he’s expecting things to get harder from here. On Monday, ‘The Rocket’ quickly finished off Junxu Pang, having led 12-4 ahead of the evening session.
He only needed one frame to seal the win. That followed him comfortably beating Ali Carter 10-4 in the first round, despite having not played a competitive match since January. He’ll now face world No.13 Si Jiahui for a place in the last four after the Chinese star overcame Ben Woollaston 13-10.
However, O’Sullivan is now expecting a stern test. He faced Jiahui in the quarter-final of the Saudi Masters last September and came off second best. The 22-year-old produced one of his career best performances to win 6-4.
“This will be the acid test because he does score,” O’Sullivan said after beating Pang. “The opponents I’ve played in the first two rounds have had enough chances to put me away but they haven’t.
“I think this guy will – he buried me in Saudi Arabia this year. Again, I was scrapping, but his scoring power was just too much for me. So, a three-session game, best of 25, I’m going to have to see where I’m at. That’ll be a good test for me.”
The only other meeting between the pair came at the English Open in 2023, when O’Sullivan won 4-2. He’ll be a clear favourite against when the match gets underway tomorrow, but O’Sullivan claimed he was simply happy to still be in Sheffield.
“It was hard to come back to playing after three months off because I thought it could be a complete disaster,” he added. “I was happy to make a game of it, win two or three frames maybe.”
However, BBC pundit Steve Davis argued Jiahui has been the “weakest performer so far” out of the eight remaining players, saying: “So Ronnie has got the person who arguably hasn’t actually turned up yet. But you never know.”
