Mark Selby earns glowing Ronnie O’Sullivan praise for Ali Carter thrashing
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Mark Selby was in sparkling form as he demolished Ali Carter 6-1 at the Masters on Monday and old rival Ronnie O’Sullivan could scarcely have been more impressed. The four-time world champion made breaks of 62, 108, 93, 126 and 53 in a brilliant display to book a spot in the quarter-finals where he will play Mark Allen or Si Jiahui.
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The Jester from Leicester won the British Open in September but had been a little quiet since then until he won a Championship League group last week and looked good doing it. O’Sullivan was blown away by his performance at Alexandra Palace, though, saying it’s the best he has seen from Selby in years.
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‘I don’t think I’ve seen Mark play this well for six or seven years maybe,’ O’Sullivan said on Eurosport. ‘He looks really, really sharp, his safety is always great and he’s scoring really well. You look at the reaction he’s getting out of the cue ball, he’s got all the shots at the moment.
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‘It’s impossible to play against, really. You’d have to play like Judd Trump, really top class snooker, to put Selby under a little bit of pressure, but you don’t half have to play some serious snooker to do that.’. The Rocket suggested Selby has been below his best in recent seasons, even though that is still a very good standard, but reckons that the form he showed against Carter is near-impossible to live with.
‘I think the last couple of seasons, he always gives it his hardest and will always be a top four or five player even when he’s not at his best,’ he said of Selby. ‘But when he plays like that he looks like he enjoys the battle, scores well, the temperament, the granite, it’s hard to play against, especially over long matches in big tournaments. When Mark plays like that it’s kind of impossible to play.’.
