Zombie Creative Commons License 2007.12.16 0 0 13759
Ronnie O'Sullivan: "It was nice to give the crowd something to cheer about at the end. This is a great venue and a great tournament but my snooker tonight was not great, it was so poor. I played 16 poor frames but everyone now will be talking about the 147 so I feel like I've cheated, or taken a short cut. I'd rather have won 9-3, playing solid and not making any unforced errors.
The first black in the 147 was a blind shot but it wasn't as hard as it looked. It was 8-8 and I felt like I wanted to get something out of the game, to go out in a blaze of glory. Once I got to 40 I decided to go for it, and I felt a few butterflies which was good.
It's nice to get to eight 147s, I'd like to get to double figures, maybe get one at the Masters and at Sheffield and make four this season.
Mark had the upper hand for most of the match, he's a tough competitor, you don't get to a world final otherwise. At 6-3 I was losing it, really struggling. There was no fluency, no power or finesse in my shots. I was a foot out on some of my positional shots.
Stephen said in an interview that he's been watching me and noticed I'm giving away chances. He's right, and only a few people would recognise that. I've been playing quickly and scoring OK, which has camouflaged the fact that I'm making a lot of mistakes. The bookmakers will make me favourite for tomorrow but I'd make Stephen favourite. If I play like I did today I'll get beaten because Stephen is a winner."


Mark Selby: "I'm a little bit disappointed because I felt I controlled the match all the way through. But the turning point came at 7-5 when I had a good chance and after that the match changed around.
It was a brilliant end to the match. I've had a good week and I wouldn't change anything. It's disappointing to lose but Ronnie seems to have his head on this week."