Ronnie O'Sullivan out of the UK Championship after losing on British snooker return to Zhou Yuelong

World number 29 Zhou had lost all seven of his previous meetings with O’Sullivan on the professional circuit, but the Chinese cueist ended that sequence with a 6-4 victory to set up a last 16 tie with Mark Selby.

Seven-time world champion O’Sullivan - who relocated to Dubai earlier this year - was making his first competitive appearance of the season in Britain having exclusively focused on events in China and Saudi Arabia in recent months.

Before the match, O’Sullivan labelled his opponent as the favourite to go through; Zhou - who won two games at the qualifiers in Wigan to reach the main draw - made the final of the English Open and semi-finals of the Northern Ireland Open earlier this term.

O’Sullivan showed signs of matchplay rustiness as he spurned a series of opportunities across the opening two frames, and 27-year-old Zhou punished him with a final red to pink clearance in the opener, and then a yellow to black dish in the second.

Despite his slow start, though, O’Sullivan - who is set to turn 50 on Friday - kept his composure and quickly turned the tables in trademark fashion with breaks of 71 and 123 to level up at 2-2 going into the mid-session interval.

On resumption, O'Sullivan looked like going in front for the first time but broke down on 62, and after going in-off on a safety shot, Zhou counter cleared with a 48 to pinch another frame on the final ball.

World number five O'Sullivan got over that disappointment with a speedy 94 to restore parity at 3-3, but once again, Zhou stole yet another frame in the seventh on the last shot after O'Sullivan seemingly got a kick on a straightforward black earlier on in it.

After O'Sullivan missed an attempted long pot on a red at the start of frame eight, four-time ranking event finalist Zhou showed what he can do in the balls by producing a 125 break to reach the hill.

O'Sullivan kept his hopes alive in frame nine with the help of a 65 break to reduce the gap to one, before a bizarre finish in frame ten.

Having earlier compiled a 56, O'Sullivan botched a glorious chance on the colours - immediately after Zhou made a huge safety error on the yellow - as he snookered himself on the green behind the brown.

Looking shaky in his pursuit of wrapping up a maiden win over his opponent, Zhou impressively held himself together with a fantastic pot on the green and then by sinking the four remaining colours to get a result of huge personal importance.

It is the second successive year that O’Sullivan has lost his opening match at the UK, and his wait for another title on the World Snooker Tour continues. His latest triumph was in March 2024, while the last of his record 41 ranking titles came a couple of months before that.

He will also drop in the world rankings following the conclusion of the 2025 UK Championship as he was defending the £250,000 he collected from this event two years ago.

On the other table during the afternoon session at the Barbican, two-time UK Champion Selby racked up runs of 51, 82, 75 and 133 in a 6-2 win over reigning Scottish Open champion Lei Peifan.

His first professional appearance since claiming the Champion of Champions title on home soil in Leicester, Selby went 5-0 up before Lei got going with efforts of 78 and 60 . However, four-time world champion Selby got the job done in the eighth frame.

To view the full draw, results, match schedule, and other information from the 2025 UK Championship, visit here.