O'Sullivan leads Higgins, Williams loses to Hawkins

ByMichael Emons

BBC Sport journalist at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield

Ronnie O'Sullivan leads John Higgins 6-2 after the opening session of their World Championship last-16 tie but Mark Williams, the other member of snooker's fabled 'Class of 92', was knocked out of the tournament.

Williams, 51, who reached the final of the 2025 competition, lost 13-9 to 2013 finalist Barry Hawkins at a packed Crucible.

Before the matches started, the crowd gave a standing ovation to the players to celebrate the contribution of O'Sullivan, Higgins and Williams, who have won 14 world titles between them.

The much-anticipated match between 50-year-olds O'Sullivan and Higgins came 30 years after their first Crucible meeting.

Seven-time champion O'Sullivan was in superb form on Saturday as breaks of 86, 82, 137 and 95 saw him win four of the first five frames to lead 4-1.

Higgins got his first sizeable break of the match in frame six with a run of 68 but O'Sullivan won the last two frames, including a break of 76 in the final frame of the day to end with a four-frame advantage.

The match will resume on Sunday evening at 19:00 BST, with O'Sullivan needing to take six more frames to win with a session to spare.

O'Sullivan, who beat He Guoqiang 10-2 in the opening round despite using different cues in the two sessions, is aiming to win an eighth world title, which would set an outright record in the modern era.

After two sessions of their match, Hawkins led 10-6, but Williams, a champion in 2000, 2003 and 2018, was unable to fight back as the six frames went alternate ways, with Hawkins securing the victory.

Eleventh-seed Hawkins, who turned 47 on Wednesday, was helped by two breaks of 85 - one in frame 18 and one in frame 20 - to reach the Crucible quarter-finals for the seventh time.

"I just had to try my best over the three sessions. In two I played OK but the second session, I didn't play very well and that's when he got a good lead," said Williams.

"I tried to come back but he was just the better player. I just don't make enough breaks any more. I broke down on 40 or 50.

"It was the best reception I've ever seen here. They were all on their feet. It probably won't happen again with all three of us [of the 'Class of 92'] in the same session.

"There's nothing else I can really do, I can't practise for hours each day and I can't get better - as you go on, you get worse and worse."

Hawkins, who will play Northern Ireland's Mark Allen in the quarter-finals on Tuesday and Wednesday, said: "This is definitely up there [as his best Crucible experience]. It's not easy beating someone like that to get to the quarter-finals.

"I didn't just fall over the line so I'm quite happy with the way I played and my game - I enjoyed every minute of it.

"I used to have too much respect and would crumble against these sorts of players but over the last four or five years I've got more belief."

On the standing ovation at the start of the session, he said: "They were not standing for me, they were standing for the Class of 92 but when I walked out, what a feeling. It's the best place to play when it's like that."

Former world number one Allen defeated Kyren Wilson 13-9 in a thrilling contest.

Allen, 40, led 5-0 but then trailed 6-5, before moving into a 9-7 advantage by the end of Friday's middle session.

He and managed to win four of the six frames on Saturday to reach the last eight for a sixth time.

His best performances at the Crucible came in 2009 and 2023 when he reached the semi-finals.

Allen had almost four months as world number one in 2024 and has won two-thirds of snooker's Triple Crown, having lifted the Masters title in 2018 and the UK Championship in 2022.

He believes he can still win a world title - if he can raise his level of performance in Sheffield.

"I've got as much out of this event as I've deserved. I've not played well enough to win it," Allen said. "There are no lucky world champions, you just have to go out there and earn it, but I've not earned it yet.

"But I still think I have got the ability to do it. That's why I keep on coming back.

"Any win here is a good win, but the biggest positive is I'm in the quarter-finals and I'm in second gear so there's plenty more to come."

At the end, Wilson gave some encouragement to Allen.

"Kyren said 'if you play like this, you're going to be hard to stop' and that's a big boost coming from someone like him," said Allen.

Wilson said: "Mark is one who I'm always rooting for, he is a great lad, down to earth.

"I said to him 'you've got every chance of winning it'. We all know what a battler he is and I would love to see him win it."

World number one Judd Trump will retain that ranking if he beats Iran's Hossein Vafaei, and the pair finished locked at 4-4 after their first session.

Trump took three of the opening four frames, only for Vafaei, the world number 32 and the only qualifier to make it through the first round, to reel off three in a row to nudge 4-3 in front.

But 2019 world champion Trump made a superb break of 115 in the last frame of the session to leave the match finely poised before the second session on Sunday afternoon.

In the all-Chinese second-round match between China's first world champion Zhao Xintong and the country's long-time trailblazer Ding Junhui, Zhao holds a two-frame lead at 9-7, needing four more more victory.

That match will be played to a finish on Sunday morning (10:00 BST).

The opening eight frames were split in the match between Australia's 2010 world champion Neil Robertson and England's Chris Wakelin.

Robertson, helped by breaks of 65 and 59, moved 4-1 ahead, but Wakelin made a run of 77 in frame six to reignite his challenge and added the next two in a match that resumes on Sunday afternoon (14:30 BST).