Ronnie O’Sullivan and Judd Trump take control of their World Championship quarter-finals

Ronnie O’Sullivan is in a good position against Si Jiahui (Picture: Getty Images)

Ronnie O’Sullivan and Judd Trump enjoyed good starts to their World Snooker Championship quarter-finals on Tuesday afternoon, both leading after their opening sessions.

The Rocket is still struggling to find his best form, but is doing more than enough at the minute at the Crucible, leading Si Jiahui 6-2.

As was the case in his first two rounds, O’Sullivan’s opponent has performed well below his best, meaning the 49-year-old has not really had to fire to be in the lead.

Facing the seven-time world champion is a huge task, especially on the sport’s most iconic stage, with the aura and presence of O’Sullivan seemingly damaging his opponents as much as his potting.

However, the Rocket did start to show his unparalleled quality at the end of the session, making a brilliant 67 to win the seventh and then 121 to claim the eighth.

O’Sullivan is playing with a new cue this tournament, with his long potting looking a bit suspect over the first two rounds, but with a long pot success of 92 per cent in this session will be a boost for him.

On the other side of the divide on Tuesday afternoon Trump continued the impressive form he has shown so far in Sheffield, leading Luca Brecel 5-3.

Judd Trump has been thoroughly impressive so far at the Crucible (Picture: Getty Images)

The world number one was fantastic in beating Zhou Yuelong 10-4 and then Shaun Murphy 13-10, and started his match with the Bullet brilliantly.

The Ace fired in breaks of 71, 106, 110 and 87 on his way to building a good early lead at 4-1.

However, the 2023 champion is also feeling pretty good and responded with efforts of 68 and a tremendous 128 to keep things very interesting indeed.

The quarter-finals got underway on Tuesday morning, with two contrasting matches on either side of the arena floor.

On one table there could scarcely be any more experience as four-time champion John Higgins faced three-time winner Mark Williams.

Mark Williams had a shaky start against John Higgins (Picture: Getty Images)

The other table featured two players in their first ever Crucible quarter-finals as Zhao Xintong had to contend with the conqueror of Neil Robertson and Mark Allen: Chris Wakelin.

Higgins is 5-3 up on his old Class of 92 rival, but that will not be troubling Williams too much in a race to 13.

There were worries early on as the Welshman made a number of errors and found himself 5-1 behind, in danger of ending the session a long way behind, but breaks of 104 and 59 in the last two frames kept him in touch.

Zhao leads Wakelin 6-2, but it could have been very different if the Englishman had kept up the form he showed against Robertson and Allen.

Zhao Xintong is bidding for a first Crucible semi-final (Picture: Getty Images)

Wakelin took the first frame with a 93 and looked really good, but wilted afterwards, losing six frames on the spin, four of which were close and he could easily have claimed.

He nicked the last of the session to make sure it wasn’t a disaster of a morning, but he has a lot of work to do to get back into contention.

The encouraging news for the Wakelin camp is that Zhao has not been at his incredible break-building best, making just two half-centuries in the eight frames on Tuesday morning.

The four quarter-final matches all come to an end on Wednesday, with the semi-finals then running over three days from Thursday to Saturday.