Ronnie O’Sullivan proved there were no hard feelings after thrashing rival Hossein Vafaei at the World Snooker Championship.
The defending champion cruised into the last eight with a dominant performance, winning six of Saturday’s eight frames and winning 13-2 with a session to spare. Pre-match tensions had been ramped up with Vafaei pulling no punches in his assessment of the Rocket.
Ahead of last year’s tournament at the crucible, Vafaei claimed O’Sullivan should retire and accused him of “not being good for the game”. And he stoked up the faux rivalry again this time around, when jokingly suggesting his opponent was a nice person…when he was asleep.
“I heard a few days ago he was talking about me, telling me to be quiet or something like that. Ronnie is such a nice person…when he is asleep,” the Iranian said prior to the last-16 match.
The root of the rift came in a German Masters qualifier last season when O’Sullivan - whilst trailing 4-0 - smashed the reds from the break. Vafaei branded the incident “disrespectful” and promised to put up a fight claiming: “I am not scared of this guy.
“If he beats me 13-0, I’ll get up the next day and go and practice eight hours a day. Nothing will make me sad or cry.”
And while it wasn’t quite a whitewash, the gap between the opponents on the baize was crystal clear. The seven-time world champion was in imperious form in the afternoon session, rattling in breaks of 58, 68, 82, 64, 102 and 116 to book a place in the quarter finals.
But speaking after his victory, O’Sullivan looked to mend some bridges, claiming there was no rivalry and he took no personal offence to any of the ‘trash talk’ in the build-up. "It's [the remarks] not a personal thing for me, but I've always said don't doubt me, I'll tell you when I'm done,” he said, shortly after sharing a warm embrace with his opponent.
"I take it [criticism] as a motivation to still prove that I am still good, I can still play this game. It's not a personal thing, but when Hossein said that I thought 'OK, this is going to help me'.
"You don't get personal with this game, it's the game you try and master. But quarter-finals don't excite me, this tournament is all about winning. For me there's no in-between.
"There's this, the Masters and the UK Championship, the three juicy tournaments if you like, with big crowds and are at big venues. It brings the best out of the best players, so I get super-excited for them."
Vafaei couldn’t resist taking aim at O'Sullivan in the early part of the match, recreating his break by smashing into the pack of the reds in the second frame. But he admitted that he learned his lesson after a tumultuous week in Sheffield.
He told the BBC : "It's been a great journey. I've lost to the greatest ever. He [Ronnie] played fantastic, I got my lesson 100%. I've learnt things in that match which will help me in the future."
