Ronnie O’Sullivan has the chance to kick off his season by taking the Shanghai Masters after beating fellow Englishman Kyren Wilson in the semi-finals.

The ‘Rocket’ won the event 10 months ago when it was a ranking tournament and will now get a shot at the £200,000 first prize after it became invitational this year. Although the Essex cue-man took out the Kettering star 10-6, he was not at his brilliant best but still had too much to move past an in-form opponent, who had already pocketed both the Paul Hunter Classic and the Six Red World Championship in recent weeks.

Wilson had won an incredible 19 consecutive matches heading into the last-four encounter but it was the veteran five-time world champion who prevailed. In truth Wilson was his own worst enemy, throwing away several frames that he could easily have won, and he should have been 3-0 up early in the match only to squander a golden opportunity.

O’Sullivan is not rated by many in the sport as the game’s best-ever player for nothing, however, and he fought his way back to lead 4-2. The match score advanced to 6-6 before Wilson missed a simple pot and that was all that the 42-year-old needed as O’Sullivan then rattled off our frames to move through to the final.

Waiting there will be either China’s Ding Junhui or Barry Hawkins of England and it seems as though whoever reaches Sunday’s showpiece will have their work cut out to get past a man who is priced as the 5.00 favourite to win the 2018 UK Championship.