Kent’s snooker hawk Barry Hawkins has been on fire in this year's World Championships and looked on track to battle it out for the title.

After dousing the flames of Ronnie ‘The Rocket’ O’Sullivan with some superb long pots and a little stroke of luck, the Hawk flew into the quarters to take on Hong Kong’s Marco Fu.

The first ten frames were difficult to watch if you were a Hawkins fan as 38-year-old Fu stepped up to take a 9-1 lead against the world number 11.

Hawkins had totally lost the form he showed against Ronnie, with a disastrous defeat appearing inevitable.

But the former Dartford player soared in the second session to win eight out of nine frames and bring the match back to 10-9 at the Crucible.

In spite of his terrific comeback, FU was able to hold-on and produced a steely break of 74 in the 24th frame to take a 13-11 win.

Hawkins told the BBC: "I shouldn't use that match against Ronnie as an excuse but it just seems to have happened every time I've won a big match here.

"In the next session I have come out and been terrible."

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