Ronnie O’Sullivan continues to breeze through Xi’an Grand Prix draw

Ronnie O’Sullivan continued his excellent form at the Xi’an Grand Prix with two centuries and three more 50-plus breaks in a 5-2 win over Jak Jones.

O’Sullivan had dropped just one frame in three matches to reach the last 16 in China and the seven-time world champion was similarly untroubled by his Welsh opponent on Friday afternoon.

Breaks of 58, 135 and 100 helped O’Sullivan establish a 3-1 lead by the mid-session interval, while a 53 saw him move further ahead before Jones pulled one back with a fine 140 visit.

O’Sullivan, back in action this week for the first time since losing a last-frame decider to Neil Robertson at the Saudi Arabia Masters final in August, then made an 81 break to seal victory.

He will next take on Gary Wilson, who reeled off breaks of 101 and 117 en route to a 5-0 thrashing of home hope He Guoqiang, the conqueror of world number three Neil Robertson in the previous round.

Shaun Murphy produced an outstanding display to whitewash defending champion and world number two Kyren Wilson, who was restricted to just six points to his opponent’s 533 in a row.

As with O’Sullivan, Murphy made a fifty-plus break in each frame, including scores of 141 and 133 against Wilson.

“That’s pretty much as good as I’ve ever played,” Murphy said afterwards. “That’s one of the best best-of-nine matches I’ve ever been a part of.

“It’s mad. You play so many matches around the world through all your life and every now and then it comes together. I didn’t expect to play that well.”

Ahead of his quarter-final showdown against Ding Junhui, who beat Oliver Lines 5-1, Murphy added: “It was just a mad day.

“You put all the hours of practice in for moments like that. I’ll do exactly the same for my match tomorrow and I’ll probably play rubbish. It’s a mad game.”

Mark Williams edged out Barry Hawkins 5-4, while Liam Pullen, Daniel Wells and Lyu Haotian also advanced to the last eight.