Ronnie on rampage in first round

RONNIE O’sullivan required just one hour and 22 minutes to establish an 8-1 overnight lead against Thailand’s Thepchaiya Un-nooh as their eagerly-anticipated first-round clash turned into a one-man rampage.

The match between the two fastest players on the circuit saw O’sullivan begin his World Championship campaign by blasting seven breaks over 50, including two centuries, and record an average shot-time for the session of just 13.41 seconds.

If it was the kind of display that would ordinarily have brought a packed crowd to its feet, it was instead greeted with canned crowd noise relayed into the arena to mark centuries and frame wins, and which appeared to bewilder the five-time world champion.

But otherwise O’sullivan issued nothing but steely resolve as he set about blitzing his opponent, who was guilty of gifting him a series of giltedged chances which the favourite ruthlessly exploited.

John Higgins converted a 6-3 overnight lead against former finalist Matthew Stevens into a 10-5 victory.

Stevens had started the second session in style with a break of 138 to reduce the advantage to two frames, but the four-time former champion moved on to claim a relatively convincing win.

Neil Robertson won five frames in succession to beat Liang Wenbo 10-5 and make the last 16. Liang won the first frame of the evening to level at 5-5 but the Australian took command as the Chinese player’s resistance crumbled.