SHEFFIELD, United Kingdom, (MILLAT ONLINE/APP/AFP) – World number four Ding Junhui took control in the second session against Ronnie O’Sullivan Tuesday to lead 10-6 in their World Championship quarter-final.
The China number one, losing finalist at Sheffield’s Crucible venue to Mark Selby last year, rattled off five frames in a row from 5-5 including a century clearance against the five-time world champion from England.
But O’Sullivan managed to hit back with a quick-fire century in the final frame of the evening to give himself some hope going into Wednesday’s final afternoon session in the best-of-25 frame match.
Ding needs just three more frames of the possible nine to be played to reach his second successive semi-final while O’Sullivan has it all to do as he needs to win seven.
It was a high-quality encounter with a break of at least 50 in every frame in the morning session and that astonishing standard was repeated in the evening.
Ding, 30, has not beaten world number 12 O’Sullivan in a ranking event since 2006 but looks as if he could end the hoodoo and prevent the Englishman equalling Stephen Hendry’s record of 12 Crucible semi-finals.
Ding had a 63 clearance to go 5-4 ahead which O’Sullivan matched to level.
Ding then fired in breaks of breaks of 64, 65, 120, 59 and 56 to go 10-5 up before O’Sullivan responded with a typically brisk 104.