“I think the Rocket (O’Sullivan) and the Nugget (Steve Davis) have nicked a lot of them and it’s my turn to nick one I think”.
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Five-time champion O’Sullivan landed his first Crucible title at the age of 25 in 2001, at the ninth time of trying, before making it a regular habit.
Bingham trailed narrowly after the opening session, fighting back from an early deficit to win four consecutive frames to later tie the match at 5-5.
There was a moment of magic from O’Sullivan in the eighth, when Gilbert snookered him on the final red and with the frame still in the balance. This is the Devon 27-year-old’s second Sheffield appearance after his first three years ago came to an abrupt end with a 10-2 defeat to Stuart Bingham in the first round.
A superb yellow followed, and the man who has twice survived cancer in recent years was soon able to celebrate one of his finest victories.
And 68 from Bingham in the next brought the match level again, this time at 8-8.
Bingham faces a daunting opener against two-time losing finalist Ali Carter, who battled through three qualifying rounds to reach the main draw.
Neither he nor Bingham were anywhere close to daisy-fresh when at 11.25pm the handshake came.
“I’m obviously gutted, I didn’t really get a clear chance in the last frame”, said Bingham.
In this morning’s session misses were clearly irking O’Sullivan as he attempted to wrap up the match with a minimum of fuss from 8-4 ahead.
“I could play utter c*** in the next round, but at least I am still in it, usually I am heading home”.
“Regret? I’m not sure, I was just a young lad who didn’t listen to anyone”.
“My game plan was the only way I could win was attack, attack, attack”.
China’s former world No. 1 Ding Junhui will play Martin Gould in the first round of the world snooker championships to open here on Saturday.
“But he hasn’t had the best of seasons and coming here with everyone talking about the Crucible curse, it’s set up for him to go wrong”.
Many first-round winners in Sheffield start to look deeper into the tournament, and Anthony McGill was no different after seeing off last year’s runner-up Shaun Murphy to claim his third major Crucible scalp.
“I’d say he would be the tip to probably win it. You can never discount O’Sullivan’s pedigree but you’d probably have to put Judd at the top of the pile just now”.
“We all see what Stuart Bingham did past year, he was always a great player and found whatever was missing to win big tournaments”.
Defending champion Bingham headed into the concluding evening session of his awkward first-round tussle with fellow Essex potter Carter trailing 5-4, but arguably with the psychological advantage having at one stage been 5-1 adrift.
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On his Crucible debut past year, McGill beat Stephen Maguire before ending Mark Selby’s title defence, only to fall to Murphy in the quarter-finals.
