Report
World No.7 Ronnie O'Sullivan upset the
world's No.1, Stephen Hendry 10-6 in a repeat
of the 1993
final to win his first tournament of the season, his second UK title and fifth ranking title.
The victory earned him �75,000.
The match was decided when Ronnie went from 5-5 to 9-5 with scintillating snooker. Hendry didn't
pot a single ball as O'Sullivan scored 356 points without reply, assisted by breaks of 89, 32, 40,
54, 44 and 31.
Ronnie has now won 7 of their 15 meetings and must surely now be one of the strongest favourites
for the World Championship.
The victory also ended Hendry's 23-match unbeaten run at the UK Championship. It was also Ronnie
that beat him the last time, in the 1993 final.
Stephen Lee won the prize of �5,000 for the highest televised break with a magnificent 137 total
clearance in the semi-finals. Matthew Stevens won the pre-television high break prize of
�1,500 for a 143 in his third round encounter with
Tony Drago.
Other stories of the championship include Mark King's 12 successive misses in the fifth frame of
his 9-2 quarter-final loss to
Stephen Lee, and thereby conceded 48 points. He
failed
to hit any of the 14 reds available. Lee eventually halted the bizarre line of events by stepping
in with a 32-break after the twelfth miss.
This is the most successive misses ever called in a televised world ranking match.
Only one other match has involved more successive misses. That happened in a qualifying round of
the 1992 Asian open between Sean Storey and Graham Cripsey. At that occasion Storey was called for
13 successive misses.
Stephen Hendry
came back from 8-5 behind in his fourth round victory over
Anthony Hamilton.
Pictures
Here are some pictures from the championship. Click the thumbnails to see the full-size versions.
