Ronnie O’Sullivan wins Shanghai Masters with victory against Luca Brecel in thrilling final

Ronnie O’Sullivan won a fourth consecutive Shanghai Masters title, and fifth in total, with a thrilling 11-9 victory against Luca Brecel in Sunday’s final.

Snooker fans woke up on Sunday morning hoping to see an epic encounter between world No. 1 O’Sullivan and world champion Brecel, and they were not left disappointed.

The pair won enthralling semi-finals against Mark Selby and Neil Robertson respectively, and they both brought their A-games to the showpiece event.

O’Sullivan – arguably the greatest snooker player of all time – won the opening frame of the match, but Brecel responded with a total clearance of 134 in the second.

The Englishman went into the mid-session break with a healthy 3-1 lead, but Brecel came roaring back with some brilliant play to turn the tide 4-3 in his favour.

The topsy-turvy nature of the match continued as O’Sullivan won the next three frames to end the morning session with a 6-4 lead. Brecel recorded big breaks of 134, 75, 103 and 98 in the first session, but it was The Rocket who looked closer to winning the £210,000 prize.

Never underestimate a world champion, though. Brecel earned a reputation for pulling off remarkable comebacks when he won the World Championship earlier this year, and the Belgian threatened to perform his party trick in Shanghai.

Brecel pulled the score back to 7-7 at the mid-session interval after O’Sullivan left the back door open with a string of errors.

For a lesser player a run of mistakes might have been disastrous, but this is O’Sullivan we’re talking about. Aiming to extend his unbeaten run in Shanghai to 19 matches, the 47-year-old surged into a 10-7 lead and just one frame from winning the title.

Cue yet another Brecel comeback. O’Sullivan has previously said that Brecel is his favourite player to watch, and the 28-year-old showed exactly why by playing some tremendous shots to pull the match back to 10-9.

However, this time Brecel wasn’t able to add another comeback to his CV. The momentum swung several times during a tense final frame but eventually – having missed a match ball on the blue – O’Sullivan knocked in the pink to get over the line.

O’Sullivan clinched the Shanghai Masters title for a fourth consecutive time, following his wins in 2017, 2018 and 2019 – with the 2020, 2021 and 2022 editions scrubbed from the calendar due to the Covid-19 pandemic.