What is snooker going to do when Ronnie O’Sullivan realises he is 50 years old? And John Higgins for that matter? At a combined 100 years old, they potted themselves to a standstill in a compelling contest arguably greater than any seen in this unique sporting theatre.

After 33 years at the table, defeat sucks as much as it ever did. The very idea of losing has always been an affront to O’Sullivan, and to the Crucible crowd, who continue to invest all their emotional energy in his bid to win an eighth world title.

For a spell in his second round match, the “octavo” seemed an inevitability, yet it was Higgins who beat his chest in the 25th and final frame of this epic Crucible afternoon.

O’Sullivan is not so much the best to ever play snooker, but snooker itself. At least that is how it felt watching a contest in which the audience was entirely with him and Higgins, a four-time champion, was merely a character in the Ronnie movie.

The defeats are hewn from the same emotional swirl as the wins, epic in scale as our hero rises and falls. Incredibly, it is 25 years since O’Sullivan beat Higgins here to lift the first of seven world titles.

Should Higgins continue to draw down his improbable resolve, he will become the oldest world champion at 50. As magnificent as they are, O’Sullivan and Higgins are hardly poster boys for a game struggling to pull in enough kids to fire the imagination.

At 6-2, 8-3 and 9-4 it seemed O’Sullivan might be on his way to that eighth title inside two sessions. The legends in the commentary box, including seven-time champion Stephen Hendry, concluded they were watching the best session of snooker they had ever witnessed.

Even Higgins was spellbound, as much a passenger as the audience as he watched O’Sullivan pot him into the middle of next week.

“Ronnie was by far the better player,” Higgins said of those early frames. “His cue ball was amazing and that’s what sort of makes you just feel inferior sometimes, when his cue ball is so much better and I’m scrapping about.”

With his lead at 9-4, the idea O’Sullivan might lose six on the spin was for the birds. Yet by increments Higgins ground on, potting balls until the frame count swallowed the deficit.

You feared for the knuckles as he slammed his right fist into the table after missing a regulation red in the final frame of Sunday evening’s session. Higgins has that obdurate, stubborn quality that seems to infuriate O’Sullivan the most, an absolute refusal to concede and the nerve to take on the most difficult of pots.

After falling 11-10 behind, Higgins monstered an awkward blue into the green pocket then nailed a long red to begin turning the screw again. In their 30th year of professional antagonism O’Sullivan has yet to get close to masking his emotions as he sits in the chair, the practiced mask he presents betrayed by anxious twitches and facial contortions.

It is his unbreakable emotional state that keeps him in matches, that allowed him to believe when O’Sullivan was potting away on a plane only he can reach in the opening frames of the match.

Thirty years ago, O’Sullivan rinsed Higgins 18-12 in the quarters. It was all before both then. Yet in their dotage they produced a match of astonishing quality.

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It seems ungenerous and poor taste to raise the age issue after such a fabulous spectacle in which their talent and desire shone as brightly as ever, yet snooker is facing a difficult future, with the loss of Saudi Arabia’s financial backing forcing an unexpected reckoning.

Forty-somethings Shaun Murphy, Barry Hawkins, Mark Allen and Neil Roberston join Higgins in the quarter-finals. First round loser Stan Moody was the youngest competitor at this year’s tournament at 19. Teenage phenom Michal Szubarczyk, 15, made it to the third round of qualifying before losing to surprise quarter-finalist Hossein Vafaei, a baby at 31.

Thank goodness for China’s contribution. Defending champion Zhao Xintong, 29, is joined in the quarters by 22-year-old Wu Yize. After the withdrawal of the Saudi riyal, the eastward shift in snooker’s centre of gravity remains its best bet for renewal.

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