Rocket raring to go

Ronnie O’Sullivan showed an all too rare sense of excitement after setting up a mouth-watering semi-final with his fellow crowd-pleaser Jimmy White at the Rileys Club Masters.

The world champion blasted past Chinese teenager Ding Jun Hui 6-2 after White had edged out Mark Williams 6-5.

“You play the game to get through to the later stages and it’s very exciting to play Jimmy,” said O’Sullivan, beaten by White in their last meeting in this season’s Betfred Premier League.

“You have to make sure you get your tactics right and stay in the right frame of mind.”

O’Sullivan has played White on three previous occasions at Wembley and trails 2-1 to the 42-year-old Londoner at the game’s largest venue.

Last year, O’Sullivan won their semi-final 6-4 before losing the final 10-9 to Paul Hunter from 7-2 up having previously fallen at the last hurdle in 1996 and 1997.

White’s fans cannot claim they are being short-changed by their hero following a similar scoreline against Matthew Stevens.

“This, though, was a complete reverse of that match,” said White. “Against Matthew I started terribly and clicked towards the end. Against Mark, I was feeling the pressure towards the end.

“But as I heard the darts player Phil Taylor say the other night: ‘If you’ve got to win ugly, win ugly’."

John Higgins will face Peter Ebdon in the other semi-final.