O'Sullivan in charge in Shanghai

World number one Ronnie O'Sullivan eased towards a 22nd ranking title victory after taking a 6-3 lead over Liang Wenbo in the first session of the Shanghai Masters final.

O'Sullivan established a 3-0 lead before Liang got into the match to trail 3-1 at the mid-session interval.

But O'Sullivan continued to dominate the match as he ended the session three frames ahead needing four more frames to take the title.

A break of 70 gave him the first frame but it took a clearance from brown to black to make it 2-0.

A tactical third frame which lasted nine minutes short of an hour ended with O'Sullivan stretching his lead before Liang won frame four with a run of 41.

A break of 80 put O'Sullivan 4-1 up before Liang came back with 81 in the next.

However, breaks of 75 and 91 saw O'Sullivan stretch his lead to 6-2.

But with O'Sullivan looking set to take a commanding lead Liang had a break of 89 to leave the score at 6-3 with a maximum of 10 frames remaining in the match.