O'Sullivan blows Hendry away

Snooker : Ronnie O'Sullivan took command of his World Championship semi-final with Stephen Hendry as he completed a whitewash…

Snooker: Ronnie O'Sullivan took command of his World Championship semi-final with Stephen Hendry as he completed a whitewash in today's second session at the Crucible Theatre.

The 'Rocket' won all eight frames of the second session in the best-of-33 encounter to open up a commanding 12-4 lead against the out-of-sorts Hendry.

The signs were looking ominous for the Scot, who admitted that O'Sullivan is the best front-runner in the game.

The 32-year-old was cueing beautifully as he took his winning sequence of frames in the match to 11.

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But Hendry had his chances and could conceivably have won three of the first four frames, only to break down in promising positions and be punished by the ruthless O'Sullivan.

Joe Perry will be looking to build on his two-frame lead when his semi-final with Ali Carter resumes this afternoon.

The Cambridgeshire potter took advantage of a below-par performance from Carter, who would have been relatively happy to be trailing only 5-3.

Perry had been in action until close to midnight on Wednesday before closing out a dramatic 13-12 win over a shell-shocked Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals.

But the 33-year-old world number 18 showed no visible effects of his marathon match and appeared slightly less nervous in a tense session between two players making their first last-four appearance in snooker's premier tournament.