Ronnie O’Sullivan finds form to fly past Ali Carter in World Championship opener

Ronnie O’Sullivan hit his stride and surged into the second round of the World Snooker Championship thanks to a 10-4 win over Ali Carter.

The first session on Tuesday was a struggle for both players and there was little between them as it finished 5-4 in the Rocket’s favour.

O’Sullivan had not played competitively since January and Carter was dealing with a neck problem, so there were reasons for both being a long way from their best.

Overnight the situation changed for one but not the other as the Captain continued to be well below par, while the seven-time world champion found his rhythm.

Breaks of 59, 117, 74 and 123 from O’Sullivan saw him go to the mid-session interval 9-4 ahead in no time at all and one frame from victory.

The 49-year-old secured that frame as soon as he returned from the interval to make a break of 131 and picked up a heavy win over his old rival to progress to the last 16.

Carter’s winless run at the Crucible continues, with the last time he won a match at the Sheffield theatre back in 2019.

Waiting for O’Sullivan in the last 16 is Pang Junxu after he beat his Chinese compatriot Zhang Anda 10-7 in his first contest.

Pang and O’Sullivan met in the opening round of the 2023 World Championship, with the Rocket emerging a 10-7 winner.

However, the 25-year-old has picked up two wins over O’Sullivan in his short career so far, most recently at this season’s International Championship when he played brilliantly to win 6-4.

The performance in Wednesday’s second session will be very encouraging for O’Sullivan fans as he really did look impressive, fluent and confident again.

He arrived at the Crucible playing down expectations, but they will surge again after a dominant five frames to power to victory and set up a second round match for which he will be the heavy favourite.

Mark Allen in the BBC studio said: ‘We can talk all day about some of the mistakes Ali made but you just have to hold your hands up sometimes and say that is ridiculous snooker from Ronnie O’Sullivan.

‘You can’t play any better than that. What was a close match 90 minutes ago turned into a comfortable win.’

More to follow…