Ronnie O’Sullivan v Ali Carter LIVE: Masters 2024 snooker final updates and latest score tonight

O’Sullivan splits the pack and keeps the break alive with a long red into the yellow pocket, which had the crowd cheering long before it dropped. The balls are spread beautifully and he already has 50 on the board. We know how this situation normally ends…

Carter offers another ragged break which sends a red up towards the blue, and O’Sullivan punishes him with a thin cut into the middle pocket. He fires in the brown and sends the cue ball around the angles to be on a red by the black. Great cue power.

A brilliant long red wins the safety battle for O’Sullivan, and he sees off the final reds to clinch another frame.

What a final we have now!

O’Sullivan puts on 41 points before leaving himself a tricky spotted blue into the left middle pocket from the right cushion. He misses by a fair margin, and some of the crowd roar Carter’s name. Carter responds by sinking a tough, mid-length red into the middle – fantastic pot. He’s in now, although the reds remains horribly laid out with four spread along the top cushion in a line. He manages 21 points before playing safe.

O’Sullivan’s pressure finally brings a mistake from Carter, who leaves the white in the middle of the table. O’Sullivan pots the first frame of the red with the help of the rest. After all that safety, though, the reds are clustered trickily around the black and this break won’t be easy to compile.

This match is certainly more tactical this evening than it was in the afternoon. O’Sullivan, in particular, appears to have shifted down just a notch from his all-out attacking snooker, and he’s put Carter in a bit of bother at the start of this still-scoreless frame, with few safe routes back to baulk. Carter plays a well-executed drop on to the top cushion, and O’Sullivan responds by rolling the cue ball back up to baulk for round two.

O’Sullivan begins frame 11 with a near perfect break, and Carter responds by bouncing the cue ball gently off the top cushion and nestling into the pack. A safety exchange ensues.

The seated Carter had a little frosty exchange with a couple of fans next to him who were shouting out for O’Sullivan, there. There is some heat and some tension in the air at Alexandra Palace.

On the table, O’Sullivan wraps up the frame, and he’s back to two behind.

This is O’Sullivan at his flowing best, effortlessly charting a route around the table to put a half-century on the board. That is, until he gets a little unlucky try to split the bunch and runs out of options. He plays safe, Carter then leaves a long pot, and O’Sullivan puts it away. He sends the cue ball around the angles to baulk and snookers Carter, who fires a hit and hope down the table. It leaves O’Sullivan with a frame-winning chance, but a difficult one, into the right middle, and the seven-time Masters champion buries it.

The perfect start to the 10th frame by O’Sullivan, responding to Carter’s slightly loose break with a dead-eye long pot. He rolls in the yellow, another red, the blue, and he’s down around the black spot where he can cause so much damage.