Seven-time champion Ronnie O’Sullivan cruised into the Masters quarter-finals with a 6-1 victory over Jack Lisowski at Alexandra Palace. Mark Selby joined him by beating Stephen Maguire 6-3.
Lisowski made a break of 108 in the second frame to get back on level terms after O’Sullivan won a scrappy opener but missed a routine green in the next and watched O’Sullivan make an 86 clearance to move 2-1 ahead.
A break of 63 extended O’Sullivan’s lead and he returned from the mid-session interval with a total clearance of 127 and further contributions of 64 and 125 to the delight of the partisan crowd.
“I struggled early on, I was really, really nervous,” O’Sullivan said in a post-match interview.
“It’s such a big crowd, we’ve been playing behind closed doors for so long I forgot what it was like to play in front of a crowd, let alone a crowd like this full of mad Londoners.
“I was feeling the pressure, but after the second frame I calmed down a bit and thought, okay, let’s just try and play snooker and I played all right.”
O’Sullivan, who will face Australia’s Neil Robertson in the last eight, added: “I’ll just savour every match I play – 20 majors, most successful player of all time.
“I’ve just got to keep thinking of that and take that into the match and let him worry about me.”
Selby, meanwhile, was made to work hard by Maguire in a scrappy affair.
Neither the world champion nor his Scottish opponent registered a century during the contest, with Selby only mustering one break in excess of 50 points.
But with the match set to go either way at 2-2, Selby won three successive frames to move within touching distance of victory, and although Maguire hit back with a break of 84 to reduce the deficit, it was the Jester from Leicester who held his nerve to clinch victory.
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