The 43-year-old O’Sullivan has won five championships this season. The 23-year-old Cahill is the first player in history to qualify as an amateur. He doesn’t even have a world ranking.
Xinhua News Agency, Sheffield, April 23 (Reporter Prince Jiang) the World Snooker Championship broke the biggest cold door in history on the 23rd. The number one player “rocket” O’Sullivan lost to amateur Cahill at 8:10, it was eliminated in the first round.
The 43-year-old O’Sullivan has won five championships this season, and last month he regained the world’s first throne after losing nine years. The 23-year-old Cahill is the first player in history to qualify as an amateur. He doesn’t even have a world ranking.
Although it was the biggest hit to win the championship before the match, O’Sullivan obviously did not enter the state. He fell 4:5 after the first stage of the previous day. The game continued on that day. He made many low-level mistakes and soon fell behind 5:8. After that, O’Sullivan, who looked dignified, seemed to find some hand feeling. He scored 104 points and 89 points in a row, struggling to chase the score to 8:8.
O’Sullivan could have taken the lead in the 17th inning, but he made a mistake when facing the ball powder, which was not too difficult. Cahill then took a clean shot and got the match point at 9:8. In the next round, Cahill resisted the pressure and hit a single shot with 53 points to lock the victory.
Cahill said after the game that he was actually very nervous: “I almost couldn’t stand. The 11th game was the most difficult one. At that time, I resisted the pressure and scored 70 points, leading by 6:5, but then I suddenly found that in fact, he was under more pressure than me. Of course he didn’t want to lose to me. I have always believed that as long as I play my best, I can beat anyone.”
O’Sullivan claimed before the game that he was the greatest snooker player in history, which was equivalent to “Macy” in snooker. He seemed very casual in this game, with an average hitting time of only 15 seconds per stroke.
He said, “I feel terrible, as if I have been sleepwalking. In fact, I have been feeling bad for the past few weeks and haven’t slept well for several nights.”
In 1993, 17-year-old O’Sullivan took part in the world championship for the first time. This year was his 27th consecutive year, of which only four were out in the first round, and the last time was in 2003. In 2001, he won the championship for the first time at the age of 25, and then won the championship four times in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2013.