Snooker LIVE: Ronnie O’Sullivan in UK Championship action against Anthony McGill

Ronnie O’Sullivan 0-0 Anthony McGill

That’s tidy from O’Sullivan, trapping Anthony McGill in behind the yellow. McGill, carbon fibre cue in hand, comes into the bunch off one cushion with a bit of side, judging the pace perfectly. O’Sullivan knocks back up to baulk.

Ronnie O’Sullivan 0-0 Anthony McGill

O’Sullivan will break – left-handed, and a decent cue ball in behind the green. There’s a red to the corner if McGill fancies testing his range early….off two cushions and away. Close but no cigar, but the Scot ensures he gets the white up against the baulk cushion.

Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Anthony McGill

And here come the two protagonists in our featured match, Anthony McGill out with a wave. Ronnie O’Sullivan gets a roar, scratching his head as he descends the steps down to the playing area.

Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Anthony McGill

It’s time for action at the Barbican, Rob Walker giving the player introductions his customary gusto. It’s a tasty line-up across the two tables: Joe O’Connor is first out, a rising star who reached the Scottish Open final last season and will be hoping to build more success this campaign. His opponent is John Higgins, still playing mightily solid snooker at the age of 48.

Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Anthony McGill

30 years ago today, incidentally, a 17-year-old Ronnie O’Sullivan became the youngest ever winner of the UK Championship. There’s every chance he adds to his record tally of seven crowns come Sunday evening, too.

Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Anthony McGill

These two have already played once this season, with Ronnie O’Sullivan taking a 6-2 victory in a strong performance at the International Championship earlier in November. Anthony McGill will have fond memories of that captivating 13-12 win at the Crucible a couple of years ago, though – that remains the Scot‘s only win over the seven-time world champion.

WATCH: Ronnie O’Sullivan discusses his mental health in documentary

Here’s a clip of the Ronnie O’Sullivan documentary, posted by Amazon Prime. O’Sullivan will be heading out on to the baize at the York Barbican to take on Anthony McGill shortly.

Luca Brecel makes winning start in York after spending spree renews title hunger

World champion Luca Brecel insists splashing the cash has helped restore his hunger for more snooker success after he kicked off his UK Championship campaign with a gruelling 6-4 victory over Yuan Sijun in York.

The Belgian celebrated his shock Crucible success six months ago by spending half his winnings on a £250,000 Ferrari and revealed he drained his bank balance further this week by adding a Range Rover and a Porsche Taycan to his growing garage.

“I bought two more cars this week so I went from a millionaire to a non-millionaire,” said Brecel. “It was a conscious decision to buy the cars and maybe feel that bit of pressure again, to recreate the feeling I had of just starting my career.”

Brecel, who will replenish his ailing balance by a Ferrari-sized £250,000 if he goes on to claim his first UK title next Sunday, said he struggled in the aftermath of his epic triumph over Mark Selby, having achieved a dream that drove him since he first picked up a cue at the age of nine.

Luca Brecel makes winning start in York after spending spree renews title hunger

The world champion beat Yuan Sijun in his opening match at the UK Championship.

Judd Trump climbs off sick bed to beat Pang Junxu at UK Championship

Judd Trump revealed how his unquenchable desire for success helped lift him off his sick bed and into the second round of the UK Championship in York with a convincing 6-1 win over Pang Junxu.

The 34-year-old is the latest top star to arrive at the tournament suffering the apparent effects of flu, after Ding Junhui considered withdrawal before edging defending champion Mark Allen on the opening day. But Trump, who became only the fifth player in history to win three back-to-back ranking tournaments last month, indicated that pulling out was not an option as he targets a title that has eluded him since a solitary success in 2011.

“I didn’t feel great, but I’m always going to turn up and give it my best,” said Trump, who fears he caught the bug after attending rival Ronnie O’Sullivan’s documentary premiere in London last week.

“It’s a big tournament and you obviously want to do well in it. Maybe I had slightly lower expectations, and maybe that helped a bit. It was a decent first-round performance and hopefully I can go away and get a bit better.”

Judd Trump climbs off sick bed to beat Pang Junxu at UK Championship

The 34-year-old is the latest top star to arrive at the tournament suffering the apparent effects of flu.

JIM WHITE: Ronnie O’Sullivan is our greatest sportsman – and the most devastatingly honest

There is a scene in The Edge of Everything, the new documentary about Ronnie O’Sullivan, that provides as sharp an analysis as you will ever see of the pressures of top-level sport. It is from footage taken in his dressing room during the final of the 2022 World Snooker Championship in Sheffield.

At 46, O’Sullivan is poised to become the oldest winner of the title in history. But as he takes a break in the scrabble to overcome his opponent Judd Trump, he is behaving less like a seasoned veteran and more like a panicked teenager, stomping around the room in total dismay, close to tears in his frustration.

“Fuck me Steve,” he tells his resident psychiatrist coach Dr Steve Peters. “I’m bashed up here mate. What do I do?”

The gap between O’Sullivan’s apparently serene progress to gaining his record-breaking seventh world title and what was going on in his head at the time is what makes him such a fascinating character. Even better, such is his garrulous lack of worldly concern, he has long been more than happy to let us, his army of admirers, get a glimpse of what is happening beneath the bonnet. For much of his extraordinary career dominating and defining his sport, it is almost as if, for this complicated, troubled, challenged individual, we are part of the process of therapy. That he needs to share the burden in order to stay one step ahead.

In a world of PR sports documentaries, Ronnie O’Sullivan proves he is the real thing

The seven-time snooker world champion has dominated and defined his sport, writes Jim White. But his Amazon Prime documentary shows he has no time for the PR game so successfully played by the likes of David Beckham and Michael Jordan

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