Defending champion Kyren Wilson got his season underway in earnest with a superb 6-4 win over seven-time Crucible King Ronnie O’Sullivan at the Shanghai Masters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilson captured the title here in Shanghai 12 months ago, beating Ali Carter 11-9 in a fiercely contested final. The Warrior went on to win a momentous maiden Masters crown later on in the campaign. Despite those invitational successes, Wilson didn’t progress beyond the quarter-finals of any ranking events during the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Away from the table, he and his family have endured a difficult summer after their home was burgled. Wilson has brought his wife Sophie and children Finley and Bailey to Shanghai this week, and they were there to watch him produce an outstanding display against snooker’s greatest player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With 34-year-old Wilson leading 3-1 at the mid-session interval, it was the Rocket who then came out flying. Three consecutive century runs of 100, 111 and 141 saw O’Sullivan wrest the lead from his English compatriot.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilson restored parity, before a sublime 79, with the balls in difficult positions, moved him to the verge at 5-4. He powered over the line with 97 in the tenth. Next up it is three-time World Champion Mark Williams, who overcame Chris Wakelin in a 6-5 thriller. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilson said: “It is always great playing in Shanghai and somebody of the class of Ronnie O’Sullivan. You know the crowd are going to come out in their numbers when he is playing. It inspires me and makes me want to play snooker. I have my kids with me and I wanted to show them how amazing snooker is out here. I hope they enjoyed that one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It has been really tough off the table, not just on me but on all of the family. That is life. You have to move on and you have to deal with it. Coming into this tournament it has been nice to just play snooker again and get that noise out of my head. It is never going to go away completely but playing in front of such a wonderful crowd in Shanghai makes you appreciate being a snooker player.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Australia’s Neil Robertson won an epic clash with China’s Xiao Guodong 6-5 to seal his place in the quarter-finals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Thunder from Down Under was on the brink of falling at his first hurdle when he trailed Xiao, who made a stunning 147 in the third frame, by a 5-2 scoreline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2010 World Champion Robertson dug deep and made breaks of 115 and 62 en route to sealing four consecutive frames and a narrow victory, earning a meeting with either Ding Junhui or Zhao Xintong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterwards he elaborated on having created his own language to enable him to have a technical checklist in his cue case, which opponents won’t be able to read. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is like with golfers and swing thoughts. I have a little code where I write down a few things. If I miss a few long balls I’ll look at it and think what I’m not doing. Nobody has any chance of being able to decode that. It is a language that only I can understand,” said 44-year-old Robertson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’ve played Ding quite a few times in China and Xintong was the player of the season last year. Ding will be motivated by the other Chinese players winning tournaments as well and want to stay with them. It is going to be a fantastic match between them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World number one Judd Trump beat Barry Hawkins 6-4 to set up a tie with either age-old rival John Higgins or close friend Jack Lisowski. The latter came through a first round meeting with Zhang Anda this morning, holding off a fightback and winning 6-4 after leading 5-0. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
China’s Si Jiahui overcame Pang Junxu 6-4 and his reward is a showdown with compatriot and current World Champion Wu Yize, who will be making his first appearance since winning the sport’s biggest event back in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Defending champion Kyren Wilson got his season underway in earnest with a superb 6-4 win over seven-time Crucible<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[378],"class_list":["post-15145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-snooker"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t