Ronnie O’Sullivan v Stuart Bingham live stream | World Grand Prix 2021 preview
O’Sullivan and Bingham collide on Saturday (Photo by Steve Paston/PA Images)
Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stuart Bingham do battle for the right to face Neil Robertson in the 2021 World Grand Prix final in Coventry.
Indeed the Australian, who beat Mark Selby 6-3 on Friday, awaits the winner of the second mouth-watering semi-final between former World champions at the Coventry Building Society Arena.
2018 champion O’Sullivan is appearing in his fourth semi-final at this tournament, having won two of the previous three such encounters.
That included a 6-0 whitewash of Bingham at the inaugural event in 2015; one of 17 victories he has registered in 21 meetings with Ballrun.
The most recent of these came at the Champion of Champions last month, with the Rocket prevailing 4-2 in the group semi-finals.
The six-time World champion has dropped just four frames on the way to reaching his third ranking event semi-final of the campaign – also getting to the last four of the English Open and Scottish Open.
Meanwhile, Bingham is appearing at this stage of a ranking event for the first time since his run to the one-table setup at the Crucible in May.
Following a slow start to the campaign – his best run seeing him reach the last 16 of the Northern Ireland Open – Ballrun has finally clicked into gear this week.
After coming through deciders against Ricky Walden and Ali Carter, the 2015 World champion then enjoyed a dominant 5-1 victory over Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals.
The Basildon cueist has not ventured to this stage of the World Grand Prix since reaching the 2016 final, which he lost 10-9 to Shaun Murphy – and would love to go the extra couple of steps five years on.
The match gets underway at 7pm GMT on Saturday and will be contested over the best of 11 frames at the Coventry Building Society Arena.