Ronnie O'Sullivan crashes out of World Snooker Championships and made to wait for record

Ronnie O'Sullivan has been dumped out of the World Snooker Championship after losing 7-17 to amateur Zhao Xintong in the semi-finals. This had been The Rocket's first tournament for several months, but his bid for an eighth title will be put back on hold.

O'Sullivan made a strong start to this year's tournament by claiming a dominant 10-4 win over Ali Carter in the first round. He then smashed Pang Junxu 13-4 in the second round before a closer affair against Si Jiahui in the quarter-finals.

A 13-9 win over the Chinese star set up a final four clash against Zhao. But O'Sullivan could not keep the magic running and will now head home, with Zhao to face either Mark Williams or Judd Trump in the final.

O'Sullivan has won seven world championships over the course of his career, with his last coming in 2022. He needs one more world championship to claim the outright record, with the 49-year-old currently sitting level with Stephen Hendry on seven.

The Rocket was gracious in defeat, rising to his feet as Zhao cleared the table in the match's final frame. He then shook the hand of his opponent, who led an ovation to O'Sullivan.

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Zhao is aiming to become China's first-ever snooker world champion and is just the second Asian player to reach the final. The other semi-final between Williams and Trump will resume on Saturday morning, with the score currently level at 8-8.

Friday's defeat was one of the worst of O'Sullivan's career, with The Rocket losing with a session to spare for only the second time in his career. The last three times a world semi-final has finished with a session to spare it was O’Sullivan who was the victor.

Zhao started the match by becoming only the fourth player in history to whitewash O’Sullivan in a session at the Crucible. The Chinese star spent 20 months in exile after he was banned for betting breaches as part of the match-fixing scandal which rocked snooker last year.

The morning session lasted just 82 minutes as Zhao produced a blistering spell to hit breaks of 57, 112, 82, 57, 67 and 115. That opened up a hefty 11-4 lead.

When play resumed on Friday evening, O'Sullivan did manage to avoid the embarrassing feat of losing 10 straight frames. He closed the gap to 12-6, but Zhao then took control once again.

He hit breaks of 62 and 128 to take a huge lead of 14-6. There was to be no way back for O'Sullivan, with Zhao winning three of the final four frames to seal his place in the final and leave O'Sullivan cursing his performance.

The Rocket told Sport: "Zhao played good, he deserved his victory. I think he's done brilliantly all tournament and all credit to Zhao. He played better than me.

"I've been awful for quite a while, those performances are in there, they've been coming out quite regularly recently. I'd like it to be [there], I'd just like to play alright and I just felt like I never gave him a game so that's a bit disappointing."