Snooker: Routine Win for O'sullivan Fails to Impress His Harshest Critic

While Stephen Hendry's motivation comes unashamedly from the gathering of titles, Ronnie O'Sullivan's seems to arise from the pursuit of perfection. Both reached the last 16 of the Welsh Open yesterday, Hendry with a 5-2 win over Ben Woollaston, O'Sullivan by dispatching Ian McCulloch 5-1.

O'Sullivan's breaks of 85 and 109 and a 64 clearance to steal yesterday's fifth frame on the black prompted this sternest of self-critics to acknowledge he "played well in spells". "I'm more interested in how I play than the results," said O'Sullivan of this event and next month's China Open. "I've got an ability to play bad and win but I can't accept that any more. Unless I reach the standard I know I'm capable of I don't enjoy the game. I can dig deep for certain tournaments but I don't want to keep struggling."

Twice a world champion, O'Sullivan appears to believe that improvement and consistency are largely matters of technique and even spoke of "taking his game apart" but the road to perfection surely lies more in the direction of less volatility of mood from one day to another.

O'Sullivan played snooker about as well as it can be played in overwhelming Ding Junhui 10-3 to win last month's Masters at Wembley but was flat and uninspired in losing his opening match 5-3 to Michael Holt in the Malta Cup. His aspiration to sustained perfection may be genuine, even if it is difficult to accept in its entirety his claim that "titles, trophies and money mean nothing to me".

For Hendry this trinity provides the necessary validation not only of his talent but of the time and concentration he still invests on the practice table. The 38-year-old Scot yearns for a 37th world ranking title two years after his 36th and only once relaxed his intensity against Woollaston, the 19-year-old junior champion.

When Hendry did miss a frame ball for 4-0 - "I got careless," he admitted - Woollaston hinted at his considerable potential not only by clearing the 51 to snatch that frame on the black but also through his winning 63 in the sixth before Hendry snuffed out his hopes with an immaculate 128 in the seventh.

The performance of the day, though, came from neither O'Sullivan nor Hendry but the 2005 world champion, Shaun Murphy, the winner in Malta 10 days ago. Breaks of 135, 123, 102 and 101 in the first four frames of his 5-0 win over Northern Ireland's Jamie Cope emulated the feat of John Higgins in the 2005 Grand Prix. There was a brief prospect of another century in the fifth until Murphy ran out of position. "I knew five on the bounce had never been done," he said. "I'm sure it will be some time."

Dave Harold turned his 4-1 deficit against the UK champion, Peter Ebdon, into a 5-4 win. "Up to 4-1 Peter didn't miss a ball," said Harold, who started to turn the match with the 41 clearance that enabled him to snatch the sixth frame on the black.