Fu benefits from O’sullivan’s ‘off day’

MARCO Fu took advantage of an ‘off day’ from Ronnie O’sullivan to secure his first ranking victory over the Rocket in 10 years, writes Ryan Robinson.

Fu bounced back from losing the first frame as O’sullivan made breaks of 51 and 68 but Fu has breaks of 48 and 61 to take the lead at 2-1.

The Rocket levelled, countering an opening break from Fu of 52 with a 77 - but Fu wasn’t to be denied.

He said: “I’m very pleased because I came into the match as the heavy underdog.

“Sometimes you need to be 100 per cent and luckily I caught Ronnie O’sullivan on an off day - he missed a couple of shots which I didn’t expect.”

Elsewhere, Barry Hawkins booked a second round clash with Fu after seeing off Ryan Day 4-1.

In a repeat of the 2017 final of this tournament, there were three centurws - two from Hawkins including a 143 in the final frame.

2015 world champion Stuart Bingham is also through to the second round after he defeated Zhao Xintong 4-1.

Starting with successive centuries, Bingham will face either Matthew Stevens or last week’s German Masters winner Kyren Wilson in the second round.

Top seed Mark Allen had a 4-2 success over Gary Wilson.

In a match that took close to two hours, the Ulsterman led from start to finish and had the highest break of the match with 87 in the second frame.