Neal Foulds, the snooker analyst for Eurosport, was perplexed by what happened in the latter moments of Ronnie O’Sullivan’s World
Open loss against Hossein Vafaei. The Iranian opponent of the Rockets claimed a historic victory in China, but the match went down
to the final few balls of the decisive session.

Despite snookers, the world No. 1 was up by 26 points with just 27 available on the table. A reasonably straightforward black ball was
all that was needed to virtually guarantee victory. To everyone’s surprise inside the arena, O’Sullivan missed the target and gave Vafaei
the momentum instead.
He took full advantage of the opportunity to clear the remaining table, and O’Sullivan responded with a friendly handshake as they
conversed.
And Foulds couldn’t believe O’Sullivan had squandered such a simple opportunity on the black. “I can’t believe he played it at that
speed,” he replied. “Although he is the greatest player of all time, I genuinely believe he wouldn’t have missed it if he had played that
slowly.” He was unaware of the shot’s pace.”
Vafaei felt he had blown the opportunity to win when O’Sullivan made a terrible error on a red that allowed the 48-year-old to pounce.
O’Sullivan appeared to be the clear winner, but he had a terrible performance.
Vafaei said to the World Snooker Tour, “I feel great, but to be honest with you, I’m still shocked how I missed that red.” “I dropped so
quickly that my
“I am overjoyed to have won.” My hero is O’Sullivan. It’s a dream come true to play against Ronnie O’Sullivan alone, but what about
victory?”
Vafaei’s victory may have been crucial since it preserved his prospects of making it to both the World Championship and the 12-man
Tour Championship in Manchester at the beginning of next month.
Thanks in part to O’Sullivan’s unexpected miss on the black, Vafaei is in an excellent position to qualify for the season-ending Crucible
event and would guarantee him a spot in Manchester with another victory over Ding.
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