Ronnie O'Sullivan routs Barry Hawkins in Masters final to win record-equalling sixth title

O'Sullivan took a 7-1 lead into the evening session, and when they resumed they played out the longest frame of the match.

Hawkins struggled to live with O'Sullivan's superb safety shots and, with the frame going down to the wire, O'Sullivan wrapped it up in extraordinary fashion, missing the pink initially, only to see it come back off the white and go in.

That fluke summed up the final and O'Sullivan, seemingly back to his ruthless best, cruised to the final two frames to notch up his sixth title.

"I am over the moon, I knew I needed to raise my level. I was able to do that and I managed my emotions well. I am delighted to play as well I have," O'Sullivan told BBC Sport.

"[Sports psychologist] Dr Steve Peters mentioned a couple of things and I just had to focus on each ball. If Barry played like he did in the semis, it would have been a great match.

"This is only a week, but to keep your focus for 17 days at the World Championship is a grind, we'll see how it goes."

O'Sullivan scooped the £200,000 first prize and a sixth Masters title to go with his successes in 1995, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2014, matching old foe Stephen Hendry's record from the 1990s.

He only returned to competitive snooker last month after eight months off when he lost to Stuart Carrington in a qualifier for the German Masters in Wigan, but showed signs of his old brilliance in overcoming Mark Williams 6-5, world number one Mark Selby 6-3 and Bingham, who overcame him 13-9 in the quarter-finals at Crucible on his way to winning his first world title in May.

It was a huge winning margin at Alexandra Palace, with O'Sullivan eclipsing his previous biggest final victory - a 10-3 win over Ding Junhui in 2007 at Wembley Arena.

Ronnie O'Sullivan built up a 7-1 lead over a faltering Barry Hawkins to leave himself three frames short of winning the prestigious invitational event.

After watching Hawkins recover to snag a close first frame, the world number eight was forced to sit and suffer for the rest of the afternoon session as O'Sullivan turned a final before 2,000 fans into a practice session.

Breaks of 70, 136, 52, 77 and 72 helped the five-times world champion saunter six frames clear.

He cut a dejected figure despite beating world champion Bingham on Saturday night, astonishingly claiming he was "embarrassed" by the poverty of his play. Yet he was hardly out of position in punishing several errors from Hawkins in failing to score heavily enough.

In a repeat of the 2013 World Championship final which O'Sullivan won, Ditton's Hawkins will be severely disappointed with his returns having ousted Judd Trump 6-4 on Saturday to prompt a level of expectation that did not match his levels of output in the final.

Perhaps it should be of little surprise with Hawkins having managed to complete only one win over his fellow Englishman in their previous nine meetings. That was back in 2002.