O’sullivan trails Carter in tight match

Ronnie O’sullivan has twice beaten Ali Carter in the Betfred World Snooker Championship final but their second-round match is on a knife edge this year ahead of today’s final session.

The Rocket trails 9-7 ahead of this afternoon’s conclusion, although it could have been so much worse after he trailed 8-3 early last night.

O’sullivan has looked out of sorts for much of the tournament, and admitted he was embarrassed during parts of his first-round win against Stephen Maguire.

But the five-time champion gave himself a fighting chance by winning four of the last five frames against Carter – the 15th seed.

The winner will join Masters champion Mark Allen in the quarter-finals after he won the final five frames to see off Joe Perry.

Allen was pegged back to 8-8 but accelerated to the finish line – with two hundreds the highlight – to reach the last eight for the first time in seven years.

Elsewhere today, Scotland’s John Higgins begins his second-round contest against up-and-coming English talent Jack Lisowski, while Barry Hawkins and Kyren Wilson will hope to turn overnight leads into wins.

Hawkins leads Lyu Haotian 9-7, while Wilson is 5-3 up on Jamie Jones.

Watch the snooker World Championship LIVE on Eurosport and Eurosport Player with Colin Murray and analysis from Ronnie O’sullivan, Jimmy White and Neal Foulds.