O’Sullivan knocked out of Champion of Champions by Xiao

Ronnie O’Sullivan was knocked out in the opening round of the 2024 Champion of Champions tournament in Bolton by China’s Xiao Guodong.

Xiao then beat Mark Selby 6-5 in the quarter-finals, after coming back from 4-1 and 5-4 down.

In the first round, four-time Champion of Champions winner O’Sullivan, 48, had taken a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven-frames match, only to lose 4-3 after a superb comeback from Xiao.

Just as he had done earlier in the day, Xiao came from three frames down to level the match at 4-4, doing so again two frames later to make it 5-5.

In a tense final frame that include a rerack, Selby took a 39-0 lead, but Xiao turned it around to win 78-51, including a break of 58.

Xiao will face number one seed Mark Allen in the semi-finals. In the other last-four match sixth-seed Mark Williams will take on Neil Robertson.

Breaks of 95 and 125 in frames two and three respectively had seven-time world champion O’Sullivan on course to reach Thursday’s quarter-final at the Toughsheet Community Stadium.

But Xiao produced breaks of 130, 88 and 85 before winning the final frame 64-35.

It is O’Sullivan’s second consecutive defeat. Last week, he was knocked out of the 2024 International Championship by Pang Junxu, also from China, at the last-32 stage.

Xiao then faced Selby, who earlier on Thursday beat Shaun Murphy 4-2 to reach the last eight.

Selby raced into a 4-1 lead thanks to breaks of 63, 64 and 120, despite an impressive 118 from Xiao to win his first frame.