World Grand Prix snooker: Ronnie O'Sullivan hits four century breaks in a 5-0 victory over Xiao Guodong

It was his second whitewash of the tournament so far although understandably not quite as quick as the 53 minutes he needed to despatch Robert Milkins on Monday. This one was 71 minutes.

The Rocket had to survive a real scare against Yan Bingtao in his last-16 clash on Wednesday but on this occasion he was at his brilliant break-building best, making runs of 105, 102 and 101 in the first three frames before a superb clearance of 55 saw him take a 4-0 lead into the mini interval.

O'Sullivan picked up where he left off after the break with a 106 to storm into the semi-finals and he'll next meet Stephen Maguire on Friday night.

Maguire cruised to a comfortable 5-2 triumph over Shaun Murphy but will need to play a lot better to trouble O'Sullivan, who is favourite to land his 32nd ranking title this week.

Afterwards he told ITV4: "I do sometimes praise myself and that was a very good match. I can play like that quite a lot of the time, so you can understand when I don’t play like that why I get frustrated.

"I think a lot of it is to do with looking after myself. I’ve been working with a nutritionist and I feel like I’ve got more energy and feel a lot healthier.

"I think I have a slight advantage because I don’t need to chase ranking points and I’m not motivated by that. So I come in a lot fresher and that is where my longevity will come through."

Earlier in the day, Mark Selby sealed an emphatic 4-0 victory over Scottish Open winner Neil Robertson to progress to the quarter-finals, where he will meet Michael White on Friday afternoon.

The world number one fired a break of 134 in the opening frame before further runs of 56, 68 and 55 completed the whitewash.

White also thrashed Joe Perry 4-0 while Ding Junhui claimed a 4-1 victory over Mark Joyce thanks to a high break of 134.

The Chinese star will next meet Anthony McGill, who cruised past Stuart Bingham 4-1 with the help of a rather bizarre accidental trickshot/fluke which you see below.

Related snooker links

• Sky Bet's snooker odds
• World Grand Prix schedule & results
• 2017/18 snooker calendar