The 2025 International Championship, main event, started today in the beautiful historical city of Nanjing.

Ronnie’s first round match was held-over at the main venue. He faced Alan Taylor and won it by 6-5.

It was a high quality match: every frame except the first one featured a break over 50.

Here is the report shared by WST:

Ronnie O’Sullivan rallied from behind to beat relegation threatened Allan Taylor 6-5 at the International Championship in Nanjing. 

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The Rocket maintains a 100% win rate over Taylor, who he made a 147 against at the 2018 English Open. He now leads the head-to-head 3-0.

However, this record appeared to be under threat when 40-year-old Taylor played some excellent snooker to lead 3-1 at the interval. He looked set to be moving further in front when he passed the snookers required mark in frame five, but after going in off he handed O’Sullivan a chance to counter. He cleared with 48 to steal on the black and make it 3-2. 

Taylor refused to wilt though and moved 4-2 ahead, before a sensational blitz from seven-time Crucible king O’Sullivan. Breaks of 100, 119 and 129 moved him to the verge of victory at 5-4. Taylor showed his steel to force a decider, but yet another century break of 128 from O’Sullivan earned him a second round clash with Sanderson Lam.

The 41-time ranking event winner is still hunting a first ever International Championship crown. A fine showing for Taylor, but he needs to start accumulating wins with a projected season ending ranking of 76. 

“I’m enjoying playing. It never feels like a grind when you are cueing well. I always think that if I am cueing good, then results don’t really matter. I’m enjoying playing more than I have done for maybe over a decade now,” said 49-year-old O’Sullivan. 

“I would have been disappointed if I lost today. Not because Allan didn’t deserve to win, just more that I’m enjoying playing. I think when I play alright the crowd appreciate the shots and the break building. When I click into gear that raises the temperature in there a little bit.”

Bai Yulu made the highest ever break composed by a female player in professional snooker, but still bowed out 6-5 against 14-year-old amateur Wang Xinzhong. Bai made a stunning 145 in frame seven, but it was Chinese compatriot Wang who progressed. 

World Champion Zhao Xintong top scored with 135 in a 6-1 demolition of Oliver Brown, while Thepchaiya Un-Nooh averaged just 15.9 seconds a shot in his 6-0 whitewash win over Xu Jiarui.

TNT shared some videos on YouTube:

I’m very happy that Ronnie won, although I quite like Allan Taylor as well. He’s a very funny guy, in the good meaning of the word funny, he has a great sense of humour and his impersonations of fellow players are highly amusing, very well observed and never nasty. He’s a born entertainer and I can’t imagine anyone not liking him.

Should Ronnie win tomorrow, his next opponent could be Jack Lisowski. If it happens we should see some fireworks … but it’s a shame that they are on course to meet at such an early stage of the competition.

Of course, many other matches were played today. You will find all the results on snooker.org. Most matches were won by the highest ranked player.

Bai Yulu made a 145, the highest break ever by a woman in any competition, but she still lost the match.

Wang Xinzhong, Bai’s conqueror in round 1, is only 14 years old and he went on to beat Robbie Williams by 6-1 in round 2. He will now face Shaun Murphy…