Ronnie O’Sullivan v Mark Allen live stream | Riyadh Season Snooker Championship preview

Ronnie O’Sullivan does battle with Mark Allen in another blockbuster Riyadh Season Snooker Championship semi-final on Friday.

The players ranked third and fourth respectively collide at the Global Theatre in Boulevard City, with Mark Williams or Luca Brecel awaiting the winner in the final.

The Rocket and the Pistol will vie for their first showpiece of this season, with both having failed to get their hands on any silverware thus far.

O’Sullivan will fancy his chances of breaking that duck, as he resumes his title defence in Riyadh.

The winner of the inaugural event in March, the seven-time World champion opened with a commanding 4-0 victory over good friend Ding Junhui on Thursday.

O’Sullivan has now won all four of his matches in this tournament for the loss of only three frames.

Allen will be desperate to put an abrupt stop to that, as well as what has become a semi-final hoodoo for him in recent times.

The Pistol was beaten 6-5 at this stage of the UK Championship from 5-4 up against Barry Hawkins, while suffering the same fate against eventual champion Lei Peifan, who overturned a 5-2 deficit at last week’s Scottish Open.

Nevertheless, Allen is fresh from his own turnaround in the quarter-finals, winning the last three frames from 2-1 down against Mark Selby, and will hope to build on that momentum here.

O’Sullivan has prevailed in three of the last four meetings between the players, most recently a dominant 13-4 victory at the Crucible in 2022 on his way to landing that record-equalling seventh crown.

It promises to be a mouth-watering clash, with the winner advancing to face Williams or Brecel in the showpiece later on Friday.

The match breaks off at around 4.30pm GMT (7.30pm local time), and will be contested over the best of seven frames at the Global Theatre in Boulevard City, Riyadh.

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