O'Sullivan crushes Fu to reach Masters quarterfinals

LONDON - Seven-time winner Ronnie O'Sullivan took only 80 minutes to crush Marco Fu of Hong Kong, China, 6-0 in the first round of the Masters snooker tournament on Tuesday.

Fu, a twice semifinalist in 2007 and 2017, scored 35 points in six frames and had a top break of just 8 while O'Sullivan made breaks of 120, 121, 50, 74, 112, 75 and 53 in front of a sell-out crowd at Alexandra Palace.

The 42-year-old O'Sullivan, who has won three titles since October, at the English Open, Shanghai Masters and UK Championship, will next take on Mark Allen in the quarterfinals on Thursday afternoon.

"When I get going I'm pretty decent," said O'Sullivan. "The bigger the tournament, the more the big players rise to it."

Fu said: "I struggled a little bit today but if I was on my game then I still would have been beaten 6-0, Ronnie played really well. I'm not too disappointed about the result because of the way he was playing.

"He is probably unstoppable. He was hitting the ball very well, he was on form straight away. His level of play doesn't surprise me anymore."

Fu's defeat means that all three Chinese players have suffered first-round exits in this year's Masters. Former world No 1 Ding Junhui lost to Ryan Day and 16th seed Liang Wenbo was defeated by Judd Trump on Monday.