Ronnie O’Sullivan says he is happy to be reinventing his game ahead of the 46th ranking event final of his impressive career. The Rocket battled back from 4-2 down to overcome Stephen Maguire in their semi-final meeting and book his spot in the Grand Prix decider in Preston. He’ll face Ding Junhui in the best-of-19 final after the Chinese outlasted world number one Mark Selby in a 6-5 cliffhanger that lasted close to five hours and long into the night on Saturday.
O’Sullivan, now 42, is threatening to have the best season of his career. He has already pocketed the English Open, Shanghai Masters and UK Championship crowns this season and is aiming to win four ranking titles within the same campaign for the first time in his career. Victory over Maguire fired him into his sixth final of the season, as he was runner-up at the invitational Hong Kong Masters and Champion of Champions in November. Maguire was out of the blocks fastest in their last-four encounter, breaks of 103 and 50 helping him into that 4-2 advantage. However O’Sullivan upped the gears and duly rattled off four frames in just 42 minutes to take the match away from Maguire. Having made four centuries in five frames in his quarter-final win over Xian Guodong, O’Sullivan says he’s not playing that well. “I hustled my way through the match, there wasn’t really any good ball striking,” he declared after beating Maguire. “I had to draw on my experience and will to win. After the way I played last night (beating Xiao Guodong 5-0) everyone says ‘Ronnie’s flying’ but it was just one match. “I’m not flying – I have played three patchy games and one very good one. There’s a lot of work to be done on my game to try to get a higher level of consistency.”
O’Sullivan is 2/5 to win the final against Ding, who is 9/5 underdog. They’ve met in four previous finals, with O’Sullivan having won three of those. Ahead of his bid for a 32nd ranking event win, O’Sullivan says he’s having to change his approach to stay ahead of the game. “I think my best was 2011 to 2014 or 2015 when I was dominating and crushing everyone and winning tournaments pretty easily,” he said. “These days I have to struggle more, I have had to reinvent myself because I can’t attack as much as I’d like to. I have to find ways of breaking my opponents down, a bit like Roger Federer has done in tennis. You can’t keep playing the same game because people will work you out.”
O’Sullivan is 13/2 to win the Grand Prix Final 10-6 against Ding.