Ronnie O'Sullivan comes up short and loses to wildcard at China Open

The manner of Ronnie O'Sullivan's 5‑3 defeat by Tian Pengfei, a talented Chinese wildcard, in his opening match at the China Open in Beijing raised the question of how intensely the three-time world champion wanted to win. Despite at least four surprising failures in the final frame, O'Sullivan could still have won it by taking the final four colours. He did pot brown, blue and pink and finished straight on a short-range black. Inexplicably, instead of punching it in firmly, as he or any other player on the tour normally would have done, he elected to roll it dead weight and left it on the lip after it hit both sides of the pocket . "I was shocked by Ronnie's final shot," Tian said. O'Sullivan has a long history of losing interest if he is not producing his best form. His overall performance was inconsistent and if he was ring-rusty, as many players are after not playing a match for two months, he did not adjust accordingly. "Ronnie played freely and with no caution," Tian said. Against the odds, O'Sullivan gave pursuit of a maximum a higher priority than making sure he won the seventh frame, but when he missed a red on 48 in concentrating on black-ball position, Tian cleared with 87 to lead 4-3. Despite nervously failing to nail three chances to clinch the win of his life in the eighth, Tian was presented with it by O'Sullivan's execution of his last shot. O'Sullivan said: "I try hard and play to win every match, but if my game isn't right I'll struggle against good opposition. I had chances for 4-4 but I missed too many balls at crucial times." His exit means John Higgins will top the end-of-season rankings regardless of what happens in the World Championship at the Crucible. The day's other surprise was a 5‑2 defeat for the world No3, Shaun Murphy, by the veteran Nigel Bond. Peter Ebdon carried his defence of the title into the last 16 with a 5-4 win over Judd Trump, taking the decider comfortably in three scoring visits.