Snooker/ Irish Masters: Ronnie O'Sullivan, suffering from a heavy cold, made a promising start to his quest for a fourth major title of the season as he reached the last 16 of the Fáilte Ireland Irish Masters.

The world champion had already lost twice to Stephen Maguire this season, but it was a different outcome this time as he won 5-3 at Citywest.

Those two past encounters had been high-quality affairs, and last night's meeting started in similar fashion. O'Sullivan was quickly into his stride with a break of 101 in the first frame, but Maguire hit back with a 136 total clearance and then added the third frame as well. O'Sullivan's response was a total clearance of 140.

They were level again at 3-3, but O'Sullivan regained the lead in frame seven, and with the aid of a 57 break looked to have crossed the line in the next.

Maguire got a snooker, though, and looked like clearing up to take the match into a decider. However, he left himself too much to do on the pink, and O'Sullivan got back in to close out the contest.

Stephen Hendry was always in control of his match against Finland's Robin Hull, winning 5-1 to set up a last-16 meeting today with Steve Davis.

"It will seem strange to be playing him so early in the tournament," said Hendry. "You expect it to be a semi or a final when you're up against Steve."

Peter Ebdon was poised for a winning start to his defence of the title when he led Dave Harold 4-1, but was largely frozen out after that as Harold produced an admirable recovery to win 5-4 and earn a clash with Jimmy White.

Scotland's Chris Small lost 5-4 to Ian McCulloch on the last black after a match which took five hours to complete.

Ken Doherty plays Gerard Greene today, with Michael Judge taking on Stephen Lee.