Riyadh Season Snooker Championship DELAYED with Ronnie O’Sullivan match at risk – hours after chaos when lights went out

THE semi-finals of the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship have been DELAYED.

The set-back has now put Ronnie O’Sullivan‘s match against Ding Junhui at risk – hours after play was suspended when the lights went out.

Things are running behind in Saudi, where play has been delayed by an hour.

A statement from the WST read: “Today’s afternoon session will now begin at 6pm local time, 3pm GMT.

“Where Mark Allen takes on Mark Selby for a chance at the 167 prize & a place in the semi-final tomorrow.

“The second match will commence N/B 7pm local time, 4pm GMT.”

There is no work yet on why there has been a delay to proceedings.

But it could spell disaster for O’Sullivan’s clash with Ding, which is scheduled to start at 9pm local time – which is 11pm here in the UK.

The seven-time world champ’s semi-final could be be postponed entirely and moved to a later date.

Kyren Wilson vs Luca Brecel is set to start after Allen’s face off with Selby.

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While world No.1 Judd Trump‘s tie against Mark Williams will come after at 7pm GMT.

Watch the Riyadh Season Snooker in SunSport’s live blog.

It comes hours after play was suspended after the arena plunged into darkness.

Zhang Anda was playing Ahmed Aseeri in Saudi Arabia when the lights continued to go out.

Snooker in Riyadh launched this year and a sensational $1MILLION (£780,000) bonus was announced for the first to make a 167.

And fans joked with Zhang on his way to doing so – organisers took matters into their own hands.

One said: “This lighting issue is ridiculous, feel sorry for Anda here, could really mess with his concentration as he is on the 147/167.”

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