Ronnie O’Sullivan to remain world No. 1 as Ryan Day’s British Open snooker title defence ends in defeat
Ronnie O’Sullivan will head into the English Open before his home crowd in Essex as world No. 1 after UK champion Mark Allen lost 4-0 to Kyren Wilson in the British Open last 32 on Wednesday.
Allen needed to claim the £100,000 first prize on Sunday night to topple O’Sullivan from the the summit of the rankings, but crashed out in the third round as breaks of 112 and 121 helped Wilson set up a last-16 meetnig with Barry Hawkins on Thursday afternoon.
Allen scored only one point in the first three frames, and a knock of 54 in the fourth was not enough to prevent the whitewash.
World champion and the sport’s No. 2 player Luca Brecel is only 5,000 points behind O’Sullivan, while Allen remains 45,500 points off top spot in third place.
Meanwhile, defending British Open champion Ryan Day – who defeated Allen 10-7 in last year’s final – is out of the event after losing 4-2 German Masters holder Ali Carter just before midnight on Wednesday evening.
In a scrappy match, Carter top scored with a break of 98 on his way to leading 3-1 before claiming a scrappy sixth frame to scramble over the line.
He will meet Xiao Guodong or Sanderson Lam in the last 16 of the season’s third ranking event.
The English Open matches involving the world’s top 16 have been held over to the finals venue in Brentwood as Mark Selby defends the title he claimed last season courtesy of a 9-6 final win over Luca Brecel.
O’Sullivan has been handed an opening encounter with Welshman Andrew Pagett on Monday at the Brentwood Centre in Essex.
Brecel will face tour rookie Stan Moody, the world junior champion, while there is an intriguing match between John Higgins and Marco Fu, who made a 147 in the final frame of a 6-5 win over Higgins in last year’s Hong Kong Masters semi-final.
New European Masters champion Hawkins will meet Anthony Hamilton with Jack Lisowski taking on two-time world finalist Matthew Stevens.
Emotional scenes as Selby claims English Open title after very tough year
British Open last-16 draw
- Barry Hawkins/Kyren Wilson v Oliver Lines/He Guoqiang
- Graeme Dott/Ashley Carty v Hossein Vafaei
- Ding Junhui v Mark Williams
- Hailong Ma/Hammad Miah v Fan Zhengyi/Rod Lawler
- Ali Carter v Xiao Guodong/Sanderson Lam
- Tom Ford/Jimmy Robertson v Robbie Williams/Scott Donaldson
- David Gilbert/Ishpreet Singh Chadha v Si Jiahui/Mark Selby
- Jack Lisowski/Matthew Selt v Fergal O’Brien
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