Ronnie O’Sullivan took a commanding lead after the first session of his World Snooker Championship second round clash against John Higgins on Saturday evening, emerging with a 6-2 lead.

Coming up against his longtime rival, O’Sullivan played some scintillating snooker during the opening session of the match. He had a high break of 137, also producing breaks of 92 and 82 on the night.

John Higgins was given few opening to make inroads into the Englishman’s lead, although he would manage to pick off a couple of frames.

While O’Sullivan played some wonderful snooker, his choice of equipment did take its toll on the table at the Crucible.

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Unique Ronnie O’Sullivan Snooker Makes Mark At The Crucible

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Ronnie O’Sullivan is quite old school in some of his equipment choices, most notably in his use of chalk.

The seven-time world champion still used the more traditional Triangle chalk, whereas the vast majority of other snooker pros now use Taom chalk. The former can leave noticeable marks on the cloth of the table after use, something that was raised during the match against John Higgins.

The broadcast highlighted a few marks that O’Sullivan had left on the table.

Speaking on TNT Sports, commentator David Hendon explained the situation.

The camera just focused on a few chalk marks already on the table. That is because O’Sullivan uses a different chalk to everyone on the tour basically now, maybe with the odd exception.

The chalk he uses still leaves some marks around. That brings about bad contact occasionally.

The chalk marks on the table can occasionally cause issues when it comes to getting clean cut contact, although Ronnie O’Sullivan clearly feels that its benefits outweigh the cons.

From his point of view, it certainly does not seem to be negatively affecting his performances.

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