Former top eight snooker star astonished by Ronnie O'Sullivan's "absolutely mad decision" during Crucible semi

O’Sullivan and Chinese ace Zhao Xintong returned for the second session of their mouth-watering semi-final meeting with the score tied at 4-4, but just a few hours later, former UK Champion Zhao had turned the contest on its head as he established a commanding 12-4 advantage.

With two more scheduled sessions to go, Zhao needs just five more frames to become only the second player from China - following in the footsteps of Ding Junhui from 2016 - to reach snooker’s showpiece fixture. The 28-year-old could get the job done during session three on Friday night with a session to spare.

Two-time ranking event champion Zhao, who is competing at this year’s Championship as an invited amateur, impressively compiled breaks of 57, 112, 82, 57, 67, 115 and 87 during the eight-frame onslaught against the seven-time World Champion.

This is the first time in his career that former world number six Zhao has played within the one-table set-up at the Crucible.

A struggling O’Sullivan scored a total of just 100 points across the eight frames, and will now need a Herculean comeback to keep his hopes alive of this year securing a record-breaking eighth world title.

The 49-year-old Englishman is playing in his first tournament on the professional circuit since the start of January when he deliberately snapped his cue in frustration at the Championship League Invitational in Leicester.

O’Sullivan withdrew from that behind-closed-doors event despite having one more league fixture to play. That incident sparked a sequence of subsequent competition withdrawals, including from the soon-after Masters where he was initially scheduled to defend the Triple Crown accolade at the Alexandra Palace in London.

After weeks of speculation leading up to the Crucible, O’Sullivan confirmed just a few days before the televised stages began that he would be playing in the blue riband event.

Using a new cue - a different brand to what he had previously, and using a titanium ferrule as opposed to a traditional brass one - O’Sullivan dispatched Ali Carter 10-4 in round one, Pang Junxu 13-4 in the last 16, and number 13 seed Si Jiahui 13-9 in the quarter-finals.

Going into the semi-finals, O’Sullivan had dropped the fewest amount of frames from across the opening three rounds of all the remaining contestants. However, all three of his opponents failed to apply sustained pressure on him, although Si did briefly threaten towards the end of their encounter when he got close to reducing the gap to one frame between them.

O’Sullivan did look sketchy at times during his three wins - cueball control and long-potting being the issues - although in the balls and break-building-wise he still looked very good. However, throughout the tournament in interviews O’Sullivan has been downbeat about his performances and kept expectations low, focusing more on a longer-term project to rebuild his game over the next two years.

Having changed tips during his latest Crucible campaign, O’Sullivan took the drastic action on Friday night - a few hours after sharing the spoils with Zhao in the opening session - to change the ferrule on his cue from titanium to brass.

Unfortunately for the record 41-time ranking event champion, the mid-match equipment switch didn’t seem to help, as he was swept aside by a dominant Zhao who is well on his way to winning his eighth successive match in this year’s Championship.

The change of ferrules and shocking second session result has caused much reaction and debate online from fans and pundits.

One such comment came from former world number eight and 1996 Irish Masters Champion Darren Morgan, who was seemingly astonished at the switch O’Sullivan made following the first session.

Morgan - who has worked for BBC Sport Wales for many years during its coverage of the Welsh Open - posted on his Facebook page saying:

“Well, I am a massive Ronnie O’Sullivan fan, but going from Titanium to Brass in the semi final of the worlds is crazy

“He’s scored great all tournament, just not been his self on long pots and safeties, but still won all matches convincingly. 4-4 with Zintong after the first session of semis ‘I know what, I’ll change my ferrule night before second session’

“I heard Alan McManus say what a clever move it was and we would see a different Ronnie this morning, that was a crazy assessment and Ronnie was crazy to change it, absolutely mad decision and he’s paid the price out there. Can not believe he’s pressed the self destruction button.”

Former World Seniors Snooker Champion Morgan reached the semi-finals of the 1994 World Championship at the Crucible.

O'Sullivan and Morgan played each other seven times on the professional circuit in the 1990s.

The first five of those encounters - including in the 1993 UK Championship semi-finals, and last 16 of the 1995 World Championship - went the way of O'Sullivan.

However, Morgan memorably ousted O'Sullivan 13-12 in round two of the 1997 World Championship - the round after O'Sullivan had compiled the sport's fastest-ever maximum 147 break against Mick Price.

The Welshman also won their last match-up in the 1999 Thailand Masters, 5-4.

Please visit our 2025 World Snooker Championship tournament information centre here for details on the draw, results, format and order of play.