Ronnie O’Sullivan hailed a ‘phenomenal’ performance from Neil Robertson after the Australian breezed into the final of the UK Championships following a routine 6-1 win over Zhou Yuelong.

The 38-year-old hardly missed a pot and now stands on the brink of his third victory at this tournament ahead of tomorrow’s final where he will face either Judd Trump or Lu Ning.

After dumping Mark Selby out in the previous round, Robertson made short work of Yuelong, making breaks of 125, 118 and 104, finishing with 89 to advance to book his place in tomorrow’s showpiece.

‘It was really good,’ said Robertson afterwards. ‘If you told me this morning that I would play like that, I would have taken it. I did not really make any mistakes throughout the whole match and [was] maybe even better than Friday in some areas. You cannot get too far ahead of yourself.

‘One of the first stages to be a top player is to get used to winning when you are the heavy favourite. That is something I have been able to do consistently throughout my career.

‘It is easier said than done but I just try to play like in practice, go for your shots and just be as brave. I think I have done that really well this week. Sometimes I have tried playing too perfect snooker.’

World champion O’Sullivan, meanwhile, was almost lost for words attempting to summarise Robertson’s brilliance and believes victory tomorrow could be a formality unless his opponent is able to drag him into an attritional, tactical battle.

He said: ‘Just another brilliant performance he didn’t put a foot wrong really. It’s just incredible how he seems to be doing it match after match. He’s playing a lot of matches and when you’ve got a cue action like that you can play like that, it’s a phenomenal performance.

‘When you are that good a player and used to winning games so easily when he gets in the balls the go nicely because of the way he break builds. The only time he struggles is when it goes a bit scrappy and he’s not firing on all cylinders, only because he’s not used to playing that type of snooker.

‘Selby is used to having to scrap it out, winning those sorts of frames whereas Robertson, probably 90% of the time, he’s making hundreds and 90s in one visit.

‘He’s not getting enough practice at winning those scrappy frames so if there is a weakness if it goes like that he’s probably not going to be favourite to win it for those games.’

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