Hong Kong’s Marco Fu ends 10-year losing streak against Ronnie O’Sullivan – admits his eye is ‘not getting better, not getting worse’

Hong Kong’s Marco Fu Ka-chun admitted the eye problem that nearly finished his career was not getting better after ending a 10-year losing streak against former world No 1 and five-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan at the Coral World Grand Prix in Cheltenham.

The 41-year-old Fu, who had laser surgery in December 2017 because of retinal degeneration and myodesopsia in his left eye, scored a 4-2 victory over the Rocket, having lost to the Englishman in his past nine professional matches going back to the 2009 Welsh Open.

“Going through 10 years without beating him in tournaments is very hard to handle,” said three-time ranking event winner Fu said in a post-match interview with World Snooker. “It is a weird record. I had quite a good one against him in the early part of my career. It is very strange.

“Sometimes you don’t know what to expect. You can play great against him and still lose. I think he is a much better player now and maybe I caught him on a slightly bad day and took advantage of a few mistakes.

“[As for my eye]. it’s not getting worse but it’s not getting better and I just have to get used to playing with this eye condition. It’s not affecting me too much and it’s all in the mind.”

Fu first knew there was a problem in his eye in September, 2017 after looking up to the sky and seeing “almost 200 black spots in my left eye”. After he came back to Hong Kong, a specialist discovered two problems in main eye he uses when playing snooker and suggested surgery.

Fu had breaks of 61, 52 and 55 to inflict upon O’Sullivan his first opening-round defeat since the 2016 World Grand Prix. The Hong Kong player advances to the round of 16, which means he qualifies for the next phase of the Coral Series at the Players Championship in Preston.