Ronnie O’Sullivan slap downs trash-talking Hossein Vafaei with 13-2 hammering

Ronnie O’Sullivan slapped down big-mouthed Hossein Vafaei in their grudge match as he reached a record-extending 21st World Championship quarter-final.

The trash-talking Iranian qualifier felt the wrath of a fired-up O’Sullivan as the world champion hammered him 13-2 with a session to spare. 

Both players embraced at the end of their heavily-billed clash, with Vafaei claiming they were ‘friends again’.

And defending champion O’Sullivan, who is bidding to become the first player to win eight Crucible crowns, has bigger things on his mind than personal vibes. 

‘I take it [criticism] as a motivation to prove I am still good, I can still play this game,’ said O’Sullivan, who will face Luca Brecel in his 100th Crucible match.

Ronnie O’Sullivan beat Hossein Vafaei 13-2 to reach the World Championships quarter-finals 

After the hammering Vafaei claimed he and O’Sullivan were ‘friends again’ following some trash talking from the Iranian in the build up to the match 

‘It’s not a personal thing, but when Hossein said that I thought ‘this is going to help me’. You don’t get personal with this game, it’s the game you try and master.’

O’Sullivan resumed 6-2 up and won all seven frames with breaks of 58, 68, 82, 64, 107 and 116.

Vafaei, who smashed into the pack off the break in the second frame, said: ‘I regret the break off, but I gave it back to him after he did it to me. I thought about it a lot, it wasn’t very nice when he did it.’

Debutant qualifier Jak Jones ended Neil Robertson’s title hopes for another year with a fine 13-7 victory. ‘It’s the biggest win of my career,’ world No 52 Jones said.