O’Sullivan Suffers Shock Defeat Against Wakelin

World number 70 Chris Wakelin scored a surprise 4-3 victory over Ronnie O’Sullivan in the last 32 of the Coral English Open on Thursday afternoon.

A patchy display from five-time World Champion O’Sullivan means he now has no chance of winning the £1 million bonus on offer for any player winning all four Home Nations events.

Rugby’s 24-year-old Wakelin goes through to the last 16 to face Xiao Guodong tonight at Event City in Manchester (tickets for the last few days are still available, click here for details).

O’Sullivan started strongly with a break of 110 in the first frame and added the second to lead 2-0. But Wakelin fought back to win three in a row with top runs of 106 and 59. He looked set to make a winning clearance in frame six until he missed match-ball pink on 63, allowing O’Sullivan to make it 3-3.

Wakelin led 47-0 in the decider when he missed a simple black, but O’Sullivan’s response had only reached 7 when he rattled a red in the jaws of a top corner. That was his last shot as Wakelin added 22 to seal the best win of his career.

There was another shock on an outside table as world number 111 Jak Jones beat Ding Junhui 4-2. China’s Ding made a 108 in the second frame but otherwise made too many errors and Welshman Jones won despite a top break of just 34.

Neil Robertson, meanwhile, let slip a 3-0 lead as he lost 4-3 to Xiao Guodong. Robertson knocked in breaks of 121 and 125 in winning the first three frames but couldn’t get over the winning line and when he missed the final blue in the decider, China’s Xiao took blue and pink for victory.

China’s Yan Bingtao continued to build his reputation as he beat Mark Allen 4-3 with top breaks of 75, 92 and 56.

Liam Highfield knocked out Mark Selby yesterday but came back down to Earth today, losing 4-1 to Ryan Day. Barry Hawkins saw off David Grace by the same scoreline.