O'Sullivan, Selby and Wilson win opening matches at Xi'an Grand Prix as Ford suffers early exit

Ronnie O’Sullivan got his bid for victory at the inaugural Xi’an Grand Prix up and running with a comfortable 5-0 whitewash win over Hong Kong’s world No. 11 Wang Yuchen.

The seven-time world champion is chasing a record-extending 42nd ranking triumph in China and produced top breaks of 72 and 52 in the opening two frames on his way to securing a last-64 meeting with Hungary’s Bulcsu Revesz on Tuesday at 12:30pm BST.

Meanwhile, Mark Selby produced two century breaks as he fought back from trailing 3-2 to complete a 5-3 win over 16-year-old amateur Wang Xinbo in his tournament opener.

Four-time world champion Selby began his campaign earlier on Monday morning with breaks of 136 and 50 to move 2-0 ahead, but was forced to watch Wang respond with an 80 break before dominating the next two frames to edge ahead by the odd frame in five.

A shock looked possible at that stage, but Selby regrouped with another superb century of 111 seeing him level at 3-3, before some stout matchplay snooker helped him claim the final two frames to advance to the last 64 and a match with Ireland’s Aaron Hill on Tuesday (12:30pm).

Selby has appeared in the most major ranking finals in China, winning seven times from 11 final appearances between 2011 and 2018, and will look to end his six-year wait for another title in the chase for the £177,000 first prize at the season’s second ranking event.

Elsewhere, world champion Kyren Wilson also negotiated his first hurdle at the new event with a 5-2 win over Haris Tahir, boosted by a couple of 50+ knocks after Tahir had hit back to 3-2 behind with a 66 knock.

But there is an early flight home for world No. 13 Tom Ford who lost a low-scoring last-64 encounter 5-1 to 17-year-old tour rookie Gong Chenzhi, who progresses to a meeting with Si Jiahui in the third round.

Former Crucible semi-finalist Si edged out Amir Sarkhosh 5-3 despite Iranian professional Amir producing a splendid 135 in the seventh frame.