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O’Sullivan pots a long red and gets a happy bounce off another to set him up on the black. This is his chance to turn the screw.
He moves 29-0 clear as a red lazily tangles with the jaws before going in, and the reds continue to offer up options between the blue, pink and black.
There are four bunched reds, and a single one to the right middle that hold him up at a break of 76. 67 remain. He is tight in amongst three of the reds after potting the black, and he gets a kiss off a red. Higgins comes back to the table, needing snookers.
Higgins takes a few reds and high-scoring colours which are on offer, as there is no point passing up easy points here, and lays a trap behind the pink for O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan concedes one foul.
A poor shot from Higgins leaves O’Sullivan with a red, duly dispatched, and he is 77-34 clear with 6-2 looming. The pair shake hands, and that is it for the night. Higgins is in trouble for tomorrow.
Frame 8 (best of 25): Higgins 34 O’Sullivan 77
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O’Sullivan cannons into the reds off the black with plenty of topspin, with his break on 31. He is able to glance another red in, and develop a few more reds. He’s close against the cushion now
He takes his time, checks his cue, but still perfectly pots a black to the bottom-right to leave him with a red to glance to the middle-left. But he misses it, and leaves a plant on for Higgins as he sits down, 39-0 up.
Higgins gets a scratchy seven in response, before an excellent red from O’Sullivan gives him the chance to kick on after potting the yellow, and he adds 29 before settling behind the blue.
Going into the final frame, O’Sullivan knows he will lead at the end of the session.
Frame 7 (best of 25): Higgins 7 O’Sullivan 68
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O’Sullivan pinches one, and then some safety plays sees Higgins gift his opponent four more when he pots the cue ball.
5-0 down, Higgins builds a break of his own, carefully. He then forces a pot on the blue, but gets a dodgy touch on a red and ends his break at 37-5 up. He hides a red and sends the cue ball to safety.
O’Sullivan promptly lets Higgins back in, and this time he has a succession of reds to pot alongside the black with relative ease, and a break of 68 cuts the deficit to two.
On the other table, Chris Wakelin defeated Mark Williams 13-9.
Frame 6 (best of 25): Higgins 105 O’Sullivan 5
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Psychologically, this frame is an important one. This is a chance for Higgins to arrest O’Sullivan’s momentum, and he makes the early running with a careful approach to the frame’s first break.
At 37-0, he gets a plant completely wrong, and may have been saved by the green, preventing anything easy for O’Sullivan.
Later, O’Sullivan rattles into a red at the top of the table before hefty backspin moves him onto the blue.
Continuing the break, stuns a white to move onto the blue to move onto the yellow as he takes the frame away from Higgins, sinking them all for another huge break, of 95.
Frame 4 (best of 25): Higgins 37 O’Sullivan 95
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The two players are back after the interval.
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O’Sullivan glides around the table as he builds his first century of the match. He has two eighty-plus breaks already, and has improved over the course of the early exchanges. With the mid-session interval here, Higgins looks like the match could already run away from him. A clearance break of 137 ends the first period.
Frame 4 (best of 25): Higgins 0 O’Sullivan 137
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O’Sullivan opens with a brisk break of 22 but leaves nothing on for Higgins, who splits the red and sends the cue ball back up the table.
Higgins cannot find his way to potting anything, and on his return O’Sullivan moves to a half-century break at a rapid clip after some early awkward pots, with a potential century in view. It ends on 82 to win the frame with a red rattling the jaws.
Frame 3 (best of 25): Higgins 0 O’Sullivan 104
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Higgins puts the frame out of its misery as he returns to clean up. A scrappy second, and one that puts the pair level after a lengthy battle. Higgins got away with one there, and O’Sullivan may not be at his ruthless best yet.
Frame 2 (best of 25): Higgins 69 O’Sullivan 46
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The frame limps on with some scrappy, single-digit breaks. Most of the reds are positioned awkwardly in the bottom left. A long red from Higgins gives him the chance for a decisive contribution, though, only for him to get a kick on the black when he is 49-11 up.
O’Sullivan seizes on a plant to start his break, and along the way some excellent manipulation of the cue ball after sinking the blue moves him within 18 of the Scot.
trailing by four, he asks for the red to be cleaned to avoid a kick, and he sinks a long pot to make him favourite for the frame, only to then miss a pink. Higgins is nervy, but perhaps O’Sullivan is too.
Frame 2 (best of 25): Higgins 49 O’Sullivan 46
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It’s Higgins’ turn to start a frame brightly, sending a long red to the bottom left. There are a few loose reds to play with. He cuts a red to continue the break, but sends the cue ball rattling against the jaws up the other end of the table, and he plays for safety on the green, 8-0 up.
A brief safety exchange sees O’Sullivan commit three successive fouls, and he falls 23-0 behind. Higgins is the next to struggle, as a fast-running table sees him pot the cue ball.
O’Sullivan has to strain for a blue as he begins to build a break, his thigh hooked over the table, but he misses a relatively easy red. We could be a while here.
Frame 2 (best of 25): Higgins 29 O’Sullivan 10
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Higgins attempts a long red to the bottom right, and leaves a plant on for O’Sullivan. He sinks it, and catches the black, but the pink to the middle-left pocket is on. He pots that well, but the pink is re-spotted on the black’s usual position, which may make for a tougher break with the way the reds are spread.
O’Sullivan predominantly focuses on the pink as he reaches 65, and pots a red for 66 to be mathematically clear, though he continues to build the break with a potential maximum of 130 on offer.
An awkward red sees the break end at 86, and Higgins does not get back up. First blood to O’Sullivan.
Frame 1 (best of 25): Higgins 0 O’Sullivan 86
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In a pre-match interview with TNT Sports, John Higgins thinks that of the three of him, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams, he will “100 per cent” be the first to retire.
Asked if they spend time together, he is clear: “No,” but on a plane to the Middle East, “we got drunk once,” but it is “tough to have a friendship” with O’Sullivan while they compete.
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The two will begin play, the first of three scheduled sessions, in five minutes.
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Higgins had a much tougher time of it in his first round match. He took on one of O’Sullivan’s occasional sparring partners, Ali Carter. He won 10-7, and his own ranking going into this match puts him as the fifth best player in the world.
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O’Sullivan had little trouble in his first round clash against He Guoqiang. He won 10-2, and while he is ranked No. 12 in the world at the moment, some of his century breaks suggested he is in with a shout here.
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Welcome to live coverage of the snooker World Championship from The Telegraph as Ronnie O’Sullivan takes on John Higgins in the second round.
The pair meet in the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield as they meet for the first time in over two years.
The match-up saw O’Sullivan a 4-0 winner against the Scottish former world No. 1 at the World Masters, but this best-of-25 is not so likely to be as one-sided.
Both are now veterans of the sport, amongst a handful of players who have won each of the Triple Crown events.
At 50, O’Sullivan is back in contention for his eighth world championship. With seven under his belt in his career so far, he currently shares the record of seven with former foe Stephen Hendry, though the pair now have a far warmer relationship.
Higgins and O’Sullivan have a competitive rivalry going back to October 1994, when Higgins secured his own whitewash, a 5-0 win at the Grand Prix.
O’Sullivan has been missing from several high profile fixtures over the last season, preferring to focus on events in Saudi Arabia and China. His appearances in Britain have been limited partly due to what he says is a declining interest in the sport, and also due to his new life in Dubai.
His last ranking title came in 2024 at the World Grand Prix, but earlier this month he defeated Higgins 6-0 at the John Virgo Trophy, an invitational event held in Ireland.
His opponent, meanwhile, won the World Open and Tour Championship last year, and was a beaten finalist in this year’s Masters when he lost 10-6 to Kyren Wilson.
For the victor, a match against the winner of Chris Wakelin vs Neil Robertson awaits in the quarter-finals.
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