English Open 2023 snooker LIVE – Ronnie O’Sullivan takes centre stage before Judd Trump and Mark Allen

Ronnie’s only won one Home international vent – this one, in 2017 – but he’s never lost in the first round, which is remarkable really. And after a couple of sighters he’s in first here – Jackson misses to let-middle – about the black spot eliminating balls. He’s quite good at that.

Still winning, still making like he’s not too arsed either way. What a man.

We begin with Ronnie O’Sullivan v Jackson Page, then continue with Jack Lisowski v Elliot Slessor. That first game, in particular, could be a lot of fun as Jackson is a good player who won’t be scared; we shall see.

Muhammad Asif 4-3 Fan Zhengyi

Anthony McGill 1-4 Zhang Anda

Chris Wakelin 4-1 Jamie Jones

Mark Williams 4-3 Xiao Guodong

And welcome to the English Open 2023 – day three!

• Ronnie O’Sullivan v Jackson Page
• Jack Lisowski v Elliot Slessor
• Anthony McGill v Zhang Anda
• Liam Pullen v Ali Carter
• Liu Hongyu v Joe O’Connor
• Mark Williams v Xiao Guodong
• Chris Wakelin v Jamie Jones
• Muhammad Asif v Fan Zhengyi
• Lukas Kleckers v Jenson Kendrick
• Andrew Higginson v Zhou Yuelong
• Si Jiahui v Fergal O’Brien
• Dylan Emery v Oliver Brown

• Hossein Vafaei v He Guoqiang
• Matthew Selt v Mark Allen

It was a first professional victory for O’Donnell against last week’s British Open finalist, who had lost all six of his previous meetings with the Leicester player.

Some superb long-range potting proved key to the victory against a jaded-looking Selby, who was forced to play two matches in a day after overcoming Zihao Xing 4-1 earlier on Tuesday.

It was also his ninth match in nine days amid his run to the British Open final with former world no. 34 O’Donnell proving too good as breaks of 51, 102 and 58 secured a last-32 meeting with Stephen Maguire, who completed a 4-2 win over another Leicester cueman in Louis Heathcote.

Selby had lifted the English Open title last December with a 9-6 win against Luca Brecel.

“I could see Mark was struggling a bit towards the end of his match this afternoon,” O’Donnell told reporters. “But he’s a marathon man, he has won the world title four times and he has got more stamina than anyone else in the game.

“If anyone can dig out a result when he is tired, it’s Mark. I took nothing for granted, kept my focus all the way through and tried to put pressure on him. The TV table was lovely, a joy to play on. I don’t get to play on that table often, and when I do it’s usually against an absolute machine.

“It was nice to pot some long balls and create chances. I will go to bed buzzing tonight, but there is no point beating Mark and then losing in the next round.

“Tomorrow is another today, and I need to be on top of my game otherwise I’ll be going home. It’s a fresh start for me this season. The tournaments are coming thick and fast now and tonight’s result gives me some momentum.”