Ding demolishes O’sullivan in UK quarter-finals

Ronnie O'sullivan crashed out of the Cazoo UK Championship quarter-finals in York after being thrashed 6-0 by Ding Junhui.

World No 1 O'sullivan was whitewashed in a Triple Crown event for the first time in his 30-year career and scored just four points in the final four frames.

The 46-year-old, who has won the UK title seven times, said:"it'sgreattoseedingplay well. He's a class act.

"Afterwards I just said to him 'you played great, go and winit,getthejobdone.'ithink we're all Ding fans.

"Some days you play and it goes great and some days it doesn't. Thirty years I've been at this game, I've taken a few knocks along the way."

Dingpunishedo'sullivanfor several mistakes in the opening two close-fought frames and from 2-0 up, the Chinese world No 38 never looked back. The 35-year-old compiled successive breaks of 88, 94, 87 and 131 in each of the next four frames to edge closertohisfourthukcrownafter winning the event in 2005, 2009 and 2019. Ding will play Tomfordintoday’ssemi-final after the world No 32 beat Joe Perry 6-4 in the last eight.