Snooker commentators 'can't understand' Ronnie O'Sullivan's bizarre choice of shot

Doing things the easy way has never been a trait of Ronnie O'Sullivan's, and the world No. 1 doesn't show any signs of changing.

The 47-year-old opened his account at the 2023 Shanghai Masters on Tuesday when he advanced to the third round following a 6-3 win over Ali Carter. But the outcome could have been far different had he come up against an opponent more capable of punishing certain missteps in China.

Not that world No. 11 Carter wasn't a capable foe, but there were a few occasions during the first frame where 'The Rocket' ignored chances to pot the pink and instead opted for safety. With only the pink and black left on the table, it left some viewers scratching their heads as to why the seven-time world champion didn't aim to sink the pink.

“I am not sure why O’Sullivan didn’t just try and drop that in,” remarked Eurosport commentator and former world No. 3 Neal Foulds after one such attempt left his opponent with a chance to claim the frame. "There’s a glimmer for Carter.”

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The score was set at 63-46 in O'Sullivan's favour when the first incident occurred, with Carter in need of the next pocket to have any chance of winning the frame. Rocket repeated and once again sought to prevent his opponent from getting a line on the pocket.

Commenting on another lower-risk shot on pink to leave Carter an opening, Foulds added: “That’s a rather odd shot, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t he try and pot the pink there? I can’t think of a reason.”

The same thing happened for a third time not long after as Foulds was once more incredulous: “That’s another shot that I can’t explain, Ali Carter with another side-along look, he actually wasn’t a million miles away from being off there when he looked over.

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"What happened on that shot? He has refused the last two pinks and was looking perilously close to being off there.”

O'Sullivan eventually took up the invitation and collected the pink before seeing out the first frame, going 2-0 and 3-1 ahead before Carter came back to draw level in a more valiant response. But that almost appeared to light a fire under the No. 1, who ripped off three winning frames in succession to see out the match.

It seemed only too intentional that an important seventh frame also saw O'Sullivan produce the match-high break of 101. And Carter barely got a look in across the closing two segments, scoring a combined score of 13 across the eighth and ninth frames.

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O'Sullivan will face 10th seed and four-time world champion John Higgins in the next phase of the Shanghai Masters. And he might be wise to take any and all scoring opportunities in that clash given the Scot has defeated O'Sullivan in four of their last five meetings, dating back to the 2021 English Open.

Higgins is one of the few players who can brag of almost being level with The Rocket in their head-to-head stakes. 'The Wizard of Wishaw' has beaten O'Sullivan 35 times from their 77 encounters to date (39 wins for O'Sullivan, three draws), though O'Sullivan did defeat him 17-11 en route to claiming last year's World Championship.

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