Barry Hawkins joins exclusive break club as he sets up date with Ronnie O'Sullivan at Shanghai Masters

Hawkins’ reward is a round two date with record five-time Shanghai Masters champion Ronnie O’Sullivan on Wednesday at the Luwan Gymnasium.

Following behind-closed-doors set-ups for the recent Wuhan and British Open qualifiers, and Championship League Snooker - which was won by Stephen Maguire - big-time snooker action returned on Monday in the Far East with the start of the £825,000 tournament.

Four-time ranking event champion Hawkins got his title tilt off to a brilliant start as he compiled a break of 102 in the opening frame, becoming the 15th player in snooker history to have made 500 or more century breaks in professional competition.

The Englishman then doubled and trebled his lead along with efforts of 79 and 86 in frames two and three respectively.

21-year-old Wu - who enjoyed somewhat of a breakthrough last season by reaching his first two ranking event finals - managed to get a foothold in the tie as he secured frames either side of the mid-session interval to make it 3-2.

However, the players traded frames from here on in, with world number nine Hawkins aided by runs of 63, 66 and 61 in completing an impressive victory.

This was the third time inside the last eight months that the two had met on the World Snooker Tour - Wu was a 4-3 winner in the last 16 of the Scottish Open and Hawkins registered a 5-3 success in the quarter-finals of the German Masters.

Barry Hawkins sets up clash with Ronnie O’Sullivan in Shanghai

Hawkins will now prepare to face O’Sullivan in the last 16, with the best-of-11 frames contest scheduled for Wednesday’s evening session in Shanghai (12:30BST time).

O’Sullivan has not yet played in this year’s Shanghai Masters; as one of the top eight seeds for the competition, he initially went straight through to round two.

In terms of their head-to-head record against each other, in all professional events O’Sullivan holds an 18-4 lead.

They have twice shared the baize in China - both instances came at the Shanghai Masters.

In 2017 - the final year the event was ranked before turning into an invitational - O'Sullivan won 5-0. Twelve months later, the two met in the final where O'Sullivan recovered from 6-4 down to score an 11-9 victory and become the first player to successfully defend the title.

However, the last time they played each other on the professional tour was at last season’s UK Championship in York where Hawkins majestically won the final four frames to construct a 6-4 victory to dethrone the defending champion during the opening session of the televised stages.

The fixture on Wednesday will be O’Sullivan’s first outing of the new 2025/26 top tier season having not been required to go to the Wuhan or British Open qualifiers, and opting against entering the Championship League.

It has been a frustrating 2025 on the table for ‘The Rocket’ thus far, during which he has featured at just two professional events.

The first was at the Championship League Invitational in early January where he deliberately snapped his cue in anger and withdrew with one match still to play.

That incident sparked a list of withdrawals from events, although he did return for the World Championship at the Crucible Theatre in April where he reached the semi-finals with a new cue before bowing out to eventual title winner Zhao Xintong.

Please visit our 2025 Shanghai Masters tournament information page here for the draw, results, format, match schedule, how to watch details and prize money payouts.