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Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Shaun Murphy: Betfred.com World Snooker Championship 2011 – Match Preview

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Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Shaun Murphy: Betfred.com World Snooker Championship 2011 – Match Preview
The Crucible Theatre will feature two of the big names in the history of snooker, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Shaun Murphy, on Saturday, the 23rd of April. The two players go head-to-head in
their second-round clash of Betfred.com World Snooker Championship 2011. Both, O’Sullivan and Murphy, have cleared their first-round matches after beating Dominic Dale and Marcus Campbell respectively.
The ‘Rocket’ clinched a clinical 10-2 victory over the Welshman Dominic Dale on Tuesday, the 19th of April. The first session of the match ended with O’Sullivan’s five-frame lead over Dale
at 7-2 on Monday, the 18th of April.
O’Sullivan took the first two scrappy frames convincingly by 75-29 and 78-0 with a stunning clearance of 78 in the next frame. On the other hand, Dale capitalized on his opponents errors right after
the second frame and took back-to-back frames, firing a fine half-century break of 56 in the fourth frame to pull level at 2-2.
Despite his retirement threats, O’Sullivan displayed classy techniques during the match to unsettle his opponent. After the game equalized, the 35-year-old O’Sullivan sparked his cue brilliantly and
pocketed superb knocks of 96, 113 and 73 to move within a five-frame lead over the world number 33 before the first session ended.
In the second session of the match on Tuesday, the world number ten, O’Sullivan, didn’t let his competitor come at the table as he finished off the match in his favour with rattling breaks of 115,
96 and 100 to book his spot against the former world champion, Shaun Murphy.
The 28-year-old Shun Murphy played the Scotsman, Marcus Campbell, in his first match of the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship 2011 and gave him the same medicine that O’Sullivan treated Dale
with. Campbell could only clinch a single frame out of the 11 frames they played and Murphy took care of the rest with some outstanding snooker shots with his straight potting style.
The first session ended in Murphy’s favour with the score-line of 8-0 after he fired some terrific breaks of 93, 100, 56, 68, 53, (53, 78) and 99. The second session also took no time to end after
the world number seven, Murphy, showed the brilliance of his cue and potted two decent breaks of 96 and 61 to get his first-round victory at 10-1 and surge into the next round against the former three-time world champion, Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Odds and Statistics
O’Sullivan has had a tough time in the current season as the player has struggled with his performance and pace. He crashed out in the first rounds of several tournaments and was so upset that he
decided to pull out of the game. However, he consulted a psychiatrist and finally reconsidered his decision.
As far as his performance in this season is concerned, he has grabbed 16 match victories out of 31, with a match winning percentage of 51.6 while his frame winning rate is a decent 63.2 percent.
On the other hand, Shaun Murphy has enjoyed a splendid season, winning a couple of events including the Players Tour Championship 2010-11 Grand Final. He holds a match winning ratio of 73 percent,
winning 46 matches out of 63 while he grabbed 249 frames out of a total of 414 in the current season with a 60.1 percent frame winning rate.
Head-to-Head
Both O’Sullivan and Murphy have gone head-to-head three times this season. The first meeting came in the Group Stage of the Premier League 2010, followed by the Final match of the same tournament
and then in the group stage of Snooker Championship League. Both went 3-3 level in the group stage of the Premier League 2010 while in the other two, O’Sullivan was victorious.
The odds here are favouring O’Sullivan and he surely has the potential to unsettle every opponent he faces. O’Sullivan said while speaking to reporters, “I never worry about anyone I play. There's
not a person playing snooker I can't beat. I haven't seen a player coming through I'm scared of.”

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