The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
O’Sullivan races into early lead over rival Murphy at the Crucible:
Snooker: Fivetime winner races into 6-2 lead against bitter rival
Ronnie O’Sullivan took obvious pleasure in putting Shaun Murphy to the sword as he hit top form in their Betfred World Championship tussle yesterday.
The five-time winner was looking in the mood for a sixth Crucible title as he built a 6-2 lead.
Rather than getting on famously, O’Sullivan and Murphy famously do not get on. O’Sullivan said bluntly at a literary festival last year that Murphy was a player he disliked.
“We don’t relate,” O’Sullivan told an amused audience.
And the division between the pair was laid bare again this week in Sheffield when Murphy picked apart O’Sullivan’s complaint of bullying against World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn and the sport’s authorities.
Murphy labelled O’Sullivan “our snooker celebrity” – but such remarks from the 2005 world champion only appeared to motivate his 41-year-old opponent.
And as he fired breaks of 91, 75, 128, 76 and 74 in streaking clear, O’Sullivan set up the possibility of beating Murphy with a session to spare, just as he did in their quarter-final three years ago when posting a savage 13-3 win. The target is again 13 frames in this second-round match, which resumes this afternoon and has another session scheduled for Saturday morning.
O’Sullivan might have led 6-1 but missed the black for the frame, and Murphy slotted it after a safety battle. But when a chance came early in the next frame, O’Sullivan pounced.
Elsewhere, NeilRobertson set up a second round clash with Marco Fu in the last 16.
Melbourne-born Robertson, the 2010 Crucible king, converted an 8-1 overnight lead into a 10-4 victory over Thai debutant Noppon Saengkham.
Barry Hawkins beat Tom Ford 10-3, while in the first best-of-25-frame second-round match to get under way, 2015 world champion Stuart Bingham fell 5-0 behind against Kyren Wilson before cutting his overnight deficit to 5-3.