O'Sullivan crashes out in Sheffield

World championship favourite Ronnie O'Sullivan has crashed out of the £1.682 million Embassy World Championship at Sheffield's Crucible after being beaten 10-6 by Marco Fu from Hong Kong.

O'Sullivan had started this afternoon's session trailing by 6-3, and things went from bad to worse for 'the Rocket' as he lost the opening two frames of the session. He managed to claw back the following frame, but Fu was in top form and proceeded to claim the next two frames, leaving him 9-4 ahead.

The Rocket sparked hopes of an unlikely comeback when he took the next two frames, to leave him traling by 9-6, but Fu soon extinguished any hopes of a fightback when he took the final frame 71-0, with a break of 67.

Meanwhile, Jimmy White completed a famous comeback victory over James Wattana this afternoon. White gained only his second victory in a ranking event this season by recovering from 6-3 down overnight to defeat the Thai 10-6.

The six- times Crucible finalist now plays Stephen Lee for a place in the last eight but, despite this victory, he will need to improve his standard by another few levels to stand any chance of upsetting the world number seven. The Londoner, never at his best during the morning sessions, took the chances presented him by a struggling Wattana who had been 4-0 up during yesterday's first session.

However, Wattana was a pale imitation of the player who twice reached the world semi-finals and was once ranked three in the world. He missed so many easy balls White probably thought his 41st birthday on May 2 had come early. Wattana should have halted his run of losses in frame 16 after White had missed the blue. He managed to pot blue and pink to leave himself a straightforward black to reduce his arrears to 8-7. Inexplicably he rattled the jaws and promptly conceded before White could pot the black.

He had another chance in what proved to be the final frame but fluffed a bad brown and the game was over a few shots later. White managed only one half-century yesterday but improved to make breaks of 51, 52 and 67 as Wattana laboured with a top effort of just 33.

White's father, Tom, wagered £1500 on his son winning the match at 9-4 and also had a side bet of £100 at 33-1 on White winning 10-6, netting him a tidy profit of over £6,000.

Meanwhile, former finalist Matthew Stevens reached the last 16, needing only 63 minutes to turn a 7-2 overnight lead into an impressive 10-3 victory over Scotsman Chris Small.

Filed by Shane Murray