Ronnie O'Sullivan ousts Jimmy White in Belfast

The pair were meeting in a ranking event over the best of seven frames or longer for the first time since 2002 when O'Sullivan ran out a 5-1 winner in the China Open last 16.

White's last notable victory over his fellow Eurosport pundit came with a 6-5 win in the quarter-finals of the Masters 14 years ago.

However, White took a scrappy first frame but O’Sullivan levelled matters courtesy of a 141 and took frames three and four to open up a two-frame advantage with three to go.

Despite the 141 and a 68 from O’Sullivan in frame four, both players were struggling - at times - for fluency but O’Sullivan took frame five and the match after a couple of loose shots from both players courtesy of a break of 95.

"It's hard playing someone who you are really friends with," said O'Sullivan afterwards.

"I was quite nervous before the match. There was a little bit of hype."

Sam Baird 4 – 3 Marco Fu

Anthony McGill 4 – 3 Aditya Mehta

Mark J Williams 4 – 0 Craig Steadman

Yan Bingtao 4 – 0 Eden Sharav

Mark King 4 – 2 Liang Wenbo

Jack Lisowski 4 – 1 John Astley

Ronnie O'Sullivan 4 – 1 Jimmy White

David B Gilbert 4 – 1 Jamie Barrett

Kyren Wilson 4 – 2 Jordan Brown

Akani Songsermsawad 4 – 3 Mark Davis

Ricky Walden 4 – 3 K Lertsattayatthorn

Barry Hawkins 4 – 1 Michael Holt

Mark Allen 4 – 2 Michael Georgiou

Robbie Williams 4 – 1 Yu Delu

Dominic Dale 4 – 0 Tom Ford

Robin Hull 4 – 2 Lee Walker

Joe Perry 4 – 3 Jimmy Robertson

Gary Wilson 4 - 3 Andrew Higginson

Zhang Anda 4 – 3 Chris Wakelin

Sanderson Lam 4 – 0 Alan McManus

Michael White 4 - 3 Chen Zhe

Fraser Patrick 4 – 0 Duane Jones

John Higgins 4 – 1 Sam Craigie

Scott Donaldson 4 – 3 Kurt Dunham

Josh Boileau 4 – 2 Hamza Akbar

Peter Ebdon 4 - 3 Adam Duffy

Zhou Yuelong 4 – 0 Allan Taylor

Hossein Vafaei Ayouri 4 - 2 Zak Surety

Kurt Maflin 4 – 1 Alex Borg

Luca Brecel 4 – 2 Jamie Cope

Fergal O'Brien 4 – 0 Mitchell Mann