O’Sullivan survives Pang fightback to seal first-round win at the Crucible

Ronnie O’Sullivan’s frank admission on the eve of the defence of his World Snooker Championship crown that he was an “old man” and finding it harder to contend with the travails of the game he has dominated for so long left you wondering if, just maybe, he was foreshadowing an almighty upset at the hands of Pang Junxu on the opening day of this year’s tournament.

While age will eventually catch up with O’Sullivan, it seems that battle has not yet been lost. Opening-round victories at the Crucible are rarely glamorous but they are often tricky to navigate. Just ask O’Sullivan, who fell to a stunning defeat to the then amateur James Cahill in the first round here four years ago. As such, this was not vintage O’Sullivan in the opening act of his quest for a record-breaking world title number eight: but it was ultimately enough to get the job done.

Perhaps the writing was on the wall for Pang, the talented 23-year-old Chinese sensation, from the moment he took the wrong route to the arena after being introduced early on Saturday morning. The Crucible is a modest venue, and certainly nothing like the kind of stages snooker has performed in front of this season, with crowds as big as 9,000 in Hong Kong. In comparison, this historic theatre houses just 980 seats, with every single person in attendance tantalisingly close to the action.

But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in its allure. You can almost feel the history dripping from the walls any time you are inside, and that creates immense pressure. How Pang seemed to feel that in the first four frames of the morning session, when he made brief inroads but ultimately came unstuck on each occasion, falling 4-0 behind in what felt like the blink of an eye. O’Sullivan, in