China's Star Jiahui Wins Championship League with a 3-2 Thrilling Victory Over 7-Time Champion O'Sullivan
Beijing time January 10th news, the 2025 New Year Snooker Invitational Championship League continues. In the second group competition, Chinese star Jiahui was in excellent form, winning the group championship with a record of 7 consecutive victories and advancing strongly to the winners' group. In the third group, three World Championship champions - O'Sullivan, Selby, and Wilson - are engaged in an extremely fierce battle.
This season, Ding Junhui, Xiao Guodong, and Lei Peifan have successively won the National Championship, Wuhan Open, and Scottish Open titles. World No. 13 ranked Jiahui also reached the final of the Wuhan Open, just one step away from leveling his first ranking event title. This season, he also defeated O'Sullivan 6-4 at the Saudi Masters.
Arriving at the 2025 Invitational Championship League, Jiahui competed in the second group. He lost 1-3 to "Captain" Ali Carter in the first round. In the subsequent group round-robin matches, he unleashed a wave of 5 consecutive victories to win the top spot in the group. Among them, in the last round of the group round-robin, his opponent was last year's World Championship runner-up Jack Jones.
In the first game of this group round-robin match between Jiahui and Jones, the opponent started with poor hand feel. After starting, he took the lead in scoring, but broke off after 1-0, and Jones failed to score. In the subsequent game, Jiahui took the lead again. This time, he found a fiery offensive feel and directly hit a single shot of 132 points, sealing Jones 133-0, and made a strong start with a 1-0 lead.
In the second game, Jiahui still maintained a fiery offensive feel and suppressed his opponent with offense. In this game, Jiahui hit another single shot of 133 points, sealing Jones 133-0 again, achieving a perfect start of 2-0 in the first two games, easily winning two match points.
In the following games, with no way out, he launched a tenacious counterattack, saving two match points from the third to fourth games, tying the score at 2-2. In the decisive game, Jiahui won with a single shot of 72 points, defeating his opponent 3-2 overall and securing the top spot in the group. In the semi-finals, Jiahui narrowly defeated Chris Wakelin 3-2. In the group championship battle, Jiahui defeated Jones 3-2 again, thus advancing to the winners' group as the group champion!