Ronnie O’Sullivan is through to the English Open quarter-finals in Barnsley after wins over China’s Zhang Yong and John Higgins on Thursday. O’Sullivan, who has been allowed to wear trainers at the tournament due to an ankle injury, was rarely troubled in his third-round clash with Zhiang but faced a bizarre moment at the end of the match. A middle-aged woman managed to evade security at the Barnsley Metrodome and began running around the table, but O’Sullivan kept his cool to sink the pink to leave himself one ball away from a 136 clearance.
The five-time world champion then opted to hand the cue to the fan, rather than attempt to pot the black himself, and revealed the details of the strange encounter in his post-match interview. He told Eurosport: “I didn’t know what to do at first and she just said, ‘I’m just having a jog, I’m just going for a jog’. “And I was like, ‘Go on then, carry on then, there’s your jog, have a shot as well while you’re at it’. “I thought she was going to pot it. I really wanted her to pot it. “I thought when the (security) guys came out they were going to rugby tackle her, but I thought, ‘If you do that, you might kill her’.”
O’Sullivan then came up against Higgins, a four-time world champion, in the fourth round and needed to fight back to secure a spot in the last eight. Higgins held a 3-2 lead but a long-pot in the sixth put O’Sullivan among the balls and he managed to level matters, before going on to win the decider to claim a 4-3 victory. O’Sullivan will take on Jack Lisowski in the quarter-finals on Saturday and he is 2/11 to claim the win, or 11/2 to win 5-0. Lisowski is 15/4 to come out on top.
Dafabet English Open odds available at Dafabet.