World Snooker Championship latest: Ronnie O’Sullivan beats Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 10-1; Anthony McGill wins thriller

The five-time world champion took just 82 minutes to storm to an 8-1 advantage in the first session of their match on Sunday, with an average shot time of less than 14 seconds.

And the 44-year-old returned to quickly wrap up the two frames needed for victory and shatter the current Crucible record of 149 minutes that Shaun Murphy took to whitewash Luo Honghao last year.

Thepchaiya missed a chance to prolong the inevitable in the opening frame of the session but was punished for missing a simple red on 22.

O’Sullivan duly stepped in with a clearance of 93 – his eighth break of over 50 in the match – to move within one frame of the second round.

Despite breaking down on 41 when he missed a relatively simple red, O’Sullivan was gifted a second chance to wrap up a crushing victory with a further break of 48.

The official match time was 108 minutes, O’Sullivan smashing the previous record time for a Crucible win and becoming the first man to win a World Championship tie in under two hours.

O’Sullivan shrugged off his record-breaking performance, insisting: “I’m not really bothered by records – I stopped bothering about records when I reached them and they didn’t really give you that buzz for very long.

“They’re nice when you’re chasing them but once you get them they’re over-rated in many ways. So I think you just take each game as it comes and it’s just nice to be out there playing some snooker.”

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McGill holds his nerve

Anthony McGill held off a spirited fightback from Jack Lisowski to win a tense decider in perhaps the match of the tournament so far.

McGill had led 9-6 having been in never been behind from the fourth frame onwards, but Lisowski rolled up his sleeves with breaks of 65 and 102, before taking the match the distance by winning a tight 18th frame.

The final frame saw the Scot in front again only to be pegged back, and Lisowski had his chance – only to miss a tricky blue which threw the contest wide open once more, before McGill extricated himself from a snooker in precise fashion to turn the match back in his favour.

McGill then thundered home the same blue ball, a quite brilliant pot which was a fitting end to the contest, leaving the simplest of pinks to make it official.

Meanwhile there’s a shock on the cards with former champion Shaun Murphy trailing Noppon Saengkham 6-3.

Yan Bingtao avoided being the victim of one himself, finally ending Elliot Slessor’s impressive resistance with a 10-7 victory.

Leading 9-2, Bingtao looked to be on to record a victory almost as impressive as O’Sullivan’s, but Slessor refused to give in and reeled off five frames in succession.

He’d given himself too much to do, however, and Bingtao sealed matters by taking a scrappy 17th frame.