World Snooker Championship 2020: Ronnie O'Sullivan trails Mark Selby

Ronnie O'Sullivan saw his overnight lead disappear as three-time winner Mark Selby hit back to lead their World Championship semi-final 9-7.

Five-time champion O'Sullivan responded with two of the next three, but Selby's 76 break gave him a two-frame lead.

Kyren Wilson fought back to level his semi-final against Scotland's Anthony McGill at 8-8 after the second session.

Trailing 6-2 overnight, England's Wilson made the first century break of the match in the day's opening frame.

Wilson, who beat 2019 champion Judd Trump in the previous round, also made a century in the 14th frame but McGill potted just 47 balls all session.

Both players are looking to make their first World Championship final, with best-of-33 match resuming at 19:00 BST and will conclude on Friday.

O'Sullivan's frustrations come to the fore

Despite difficult playing conditions on Wednesday owing to humidity, O'Sullivan settled better and opened up a 5-2 lead against fellow Englishman Selby.

'The Rocket' had a 51-point lead in the eighth, but Selby recovered to take the frame which started his revival in the match.

A notably fierce competitor, Selby started Thursday's session with a prolonged opening frame, followed it up with 97 and 58 to lead for the first time in the match.

O'Sullivan, appearing at the last-four stage at the Crucible for the first time since being beaten by Selby in the final six years ago, made contributions of 87 and 82 in between Selby's 62.

An all-important final frame of the session saw O'Sullivan in among the reds only to miss a long-range pink into the green pocket that left him punching the table in frustration as he went back to his seat.

And Selby kept himself together with a fine break to grab a two-frame lead heading into the third session on Friday at 10:00 BST.

O'Sullivan hurting - analysis

Six-time world champion Steve Davis:

Selby will be delighted with that session, he has turned it around. A frustrating session for Ronnie O'Sullivan and he missed a pink in the final frame which we would have expected him to get. That [punching the table] must have hurt his knuckles.

The next session is very important, it is an early morning start on Friday and Ronnie needs to be out of the blocks pretty quickly. A Mark Selby in the right frame of mind is tough to reel in.

1997 world champion Ken Doherty on BBC Two:

A tense afternoon and you can see how much it meant to Ronnie. Where he let Selby off the hook last night, he was completely different in his approach in today's final frame. He knew he has his opponent and he was keeping his foot firmly on him.

That was a great break and it will hurt Ronnie, he didn't play well today and that will have been brought on from last night when he did not finish the session well.

Ronnie will need to win the third session 5-3, if he loses it he will be well behind going into the final session.

Wilson hits back

Eighth seed Wilson followed his break of 100 in the ninth frame with a score off 77 in the next to cut the gap to 6-4.

McGill stopped the rot by taking the 11th frame after his opponent had missed a difficult red, but another mistake by the Scot during a safety exchange saw Wilson reduce the deficit once again with a 73 break.

However, the Englishman then made errors of his own as world number 39 McGill won another frame.

Wilson recovered in impressive style with a clearance of 116 after McGill had left a red in the jaws following a re-rack in the 14th.

The 28-year-old drew to within a single frame at 8-7 with breaks of 44 and 46 either side of a missed red to the middle by McGill, and having opened his account in the final frame with a three-ball plant, he eventually closed it out 76-0.

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