Shaun Murphy whitewashes Ronnie O'Sullivan on opening day of Riyadh Season Snooker Championship

Murphy - who lost his opening match in each of the first two editions of this event - won two matches on Wednesday in the Middle East without dropping a frame, including a whitewash victory over Ronnie O'Sullivan during the evening session.

The reigning British Open champion helped break off the third staging of this Championship by seeing off 15-year-old local amateur wildcard Ziyad Alqabbani 4-0 with runs of 55, 128 and 109.

That put him through to round two where he met O'Sullivan a few hours later, and despite their career head-to-head record being strongly weighted in favour of his opponent, Murphy crafted breaks of 53 and 93 to record another 4-0 win and his first-ever clean sweep victory over 'The Rocket' in professional competition.

That result puts Murphy into Thursday's last eight where he will face reigning world champion Zhao Xintong.

Only several weeks ago Murphy fell outside of the world's top 16 for the first time in over 19 years. However, following his title triumph in Cheltenham and run to the final of the Xi'an Grand Prix in the next event, Murphy got back into the elite bracket and then successfully made a late dash to qualify for this competition, getting into the top ten and earning an invite.

As for seven-time world champion O’Sullivan, his wait for another top flight title continues. His last tournament success was at the inaugural hosting of this competition (although it was then called the World Masters of Snooker) in March 2024.

The Englishman’s next scheduled engagement is due to be the UK Championship in York later this month where he will be going for a record-extending ninth crown.

Four-time world champion Higgins - the number eight seed here - arranged a quarter-final date with defending champion Mark Allen after dismissing a well-below-par Ding Junhui, 4-0, in the final tie of the day.

In the afternoon session, Ding defeated the other Saudi wildcard invited to the event - 22-year-old Ayman Alamri - 4-0 along with efforts of 65 and 84, but the three-time UK Champion could only muster a high of 24 in his next match.

After taking the scrappy opening two frames, Higgins twice compiled a break of 106 across the final two to stylishly notch up what was the fourth clean sweep of the day from as many contests.

The other two quarter-final fixtures to take place on Thursday in Riyadh feature the top four in the world: Judd Trump v Mark Williams and Kyren Wilson v Neil Robertson.

Visit our tournament information centre here for details on the 2025 Riyadh Season Snooker Championship including the draw, results, schedule and how to watch.