Ronnie O’Sullivan clinched a 6-4 come-from-behind victory against Anthony McGill to move into the semi-finals of the UK Championship yesterday.

Four-time champion O’Sullivan, celebrating his 39th birthday, overcame a sluggish start to the quarter-final encounter with McGill to clinch victory with one frame to spare in York.

O’Sullivan, playing on a broken left ankle sustained while running last week, quickly found himself two frames down before two breaks of 38 got him on the board.

Further breaks of 98 and 125 in the fourth and fifth frames helped O’Sullivan, who compiled a 147 break to cap off a 6-0 last-16 whitewash of Matthew Selt on Thursday, into a 3-2 lead.

McGill levelled at 3-3 with breaks of 38 and 25, before O’Sullivan responded with a 57 and a follow-up 20 to retake the lead, and then won the next frame with a 33 and a 25 to close to within a frame of victory.

McGill was not about to throw in the towel and reduced his opponent’s lead to 5-4 with a superbly-crafted century break in the ninth frame, but his resistance finally ended when O’Sullivan hit back with a 97 in the 10th to win the match and keep his hopes of winning a fifth title alive.

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