Seven-time winner Ronnie O’Sullivan made a humbling exit from the Dafabet Masters as he lost 6-1 to Mark Allen – and then revealed he was ‘glad’ to be out. ‘The Rocket’ demolished Marco Fu 6-0 in his opening match at Alexandra Palace on Tuesday but afterwards said he had not been feeling well, overcoming bouts of dizziness to defeat the man from Hong Kong.
Having won the first frame against Northern Ireland’s Allen, O’Sullivan would not register another as he turned in a disjointed performance and looked a pale shadow of the player that had won three ranking tournaments already this season. Speaking after his defeat O’Sullivan, who has been bidding for a third successive Masters title, said he again felt poor and suggested he’d have preferred not to play at all.
The 42-year-old insisted there were no excuses, but that he was relieved not to be coming back for a semi-final on Saturday. “It is not much fun when you go out there and am not feeling great,” O’Sullivan told BBC Sport. “I was feeling 60 per-cent and was hoping Mark would make some mistakes. I didn’t feel good enough physically to go on and win the tournament anyway. “I’m glad it is over. I don’t make excuses and I had to show up, if I was a footballer I would probably have missed this game but it is an individual sport so you have to turn up.”
Allen moves on to face either John Higgins or Ryan Day in the last four. Higgins is 2/5 to win their best-of-11 clash on Friday night, while Welshman Day is 9/5.
Dafabet Masters odds available at Dafabet.