Ronnie O’Sullivan’s Crucible campaign has come to an abrupt halt, beaten 17-7 by Zhao Xintong in the semi-finals of the World Snooker Championship.
It was the perfect storm for a one-sided scoreline as Zhao was superb and O’Sullivan was struggling badly, especially in the second session.
After the first session the score was 4-4, with neither finding their best form and a level game a fair result of the first eight frames.
That was on Thursday afternoon and they resumed on Friday morning in what was a completely contrasting set of eight frames.
Zhao won all of them, making breaks of 57, 112, 82, 57, 67, 115 and 87 to romp into a 12-4 lead as O’Sullivan struggled as much as we have ever seen him struggle.
That gamble appeared to be a disastrous one as he could do little right, while Zhao sparkled, resulting in the romp through the second session from the 28-year-old.
One foot was in the final after that whitewashed session, although O’Sullivan did keep his hopes alive by winning the first two frames of Friday evening.
Zhao missed a couple in those two frames, but showed he was not really fazed by making breaks of 62 and 128 to go to the mid-session interval at 14-6.
The 49-year-old was not throwing in the towel, making a 57 in the 21st frame, his first half-century since the seventh frame, to stay alive.
Zhao just had too much of a lead and was playing too well, though, taking a huge proportion of the chances he was offered while O’Sullivan was not.
Runs of 85 and 63 from the Chinese took him one away from victory at 16-7 and on the verge of beating the seven-time world champion with a session to spare.
O’Sullivan looked like he was on his way to avoiding that fate, but could only make 32 before running out of position and playing safe.
It is not easy to remain safe against Zhao for long and, sure enough, he was back at the table shortly after, making a break of 88 to win frame and match with a session to spare.
O’Sullivan told the BBC: ‘Zhao played good, he deserved his victory. He’s been brilliant all tournament. All credit to Zhao.’
He added: ‘I’ve been awful for quite a while. Them performances are in there and they’ve been coming out quite regularly.’
On his incredible win, Zhao said: ‘I can’t believe that. I need to say thank you to Ronnie because he helped me a lot before.
‘I just tried to enjoy the Crucible here, it’s my first time to play single table here. It’s an amazing time for me, I’m just trying to enjoy it because I don’t know how many times I’ll be here.’
He will take on either Judd Trump or Mark Williams in the final and they will be concerned after watching that demolition of the sport’s consensus GOAT.