Hossein Vafaei strongly criticised the conditions at the Crucible after crashing out of the World Snooker Championship in a 10-5 defeat by former champion Judd Trump.

The Iranian described the famous Sheffield venue as “smelly”, compared its practice facilities to “like playing in a garage”, and questioned the treatment of players in the course of the marathon 17-day event.

“Everything’s so bad – if you ask me if I want to come back here, I would tell you no way,” said Vafaei, who is no stranger to Crucible controversy after playing a rash break-off shot in his defeat by Ronnie O’Sullivan last year.

“Forget the history, you want to go somewhere really nice as a player. You walk round the Crucible and it smells really bad. You go to other countries, and everything is shiny. But here it’s completely different.

“The practice room – do you see anything special? I feel like I’m practising in a garage.”

Speculation over the future of the Crucible, which has staged he tournament since 1977, has been heightened since world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan suggested it should be moved to Saudi Arabia or China when the existing deal expires in 2027.

Vafaei, who made his debut in 2022, is clearly no fan and continued: “Look at the China venues, how fantastic they treat the players, a red carpet and an opening ceremony. The players are treated like stars. But here no one looks after the players, before and after the match no one cares who you are.

“If they don’t want to lose the Crucible invest some money, make it shinier, make it nicer, make it more luxury for the people. If they make it cleaner and nicer, people will enjoy it.”

Trump turned a 6-3 overnight advantage into a comfortable win over his opponent, who cut a frustrated figure after failing to take a series of chances to reach the midway point with more of a chance against the 2019 champion.

Trump was not even required to summon a half-century in a low-key second session, and was more than happy to ease though a potentially tricky assignment and seal his place in the last 16 against either Tom Ford or Ricky Walden.

“I got the job done in that first session,” shrugged Trump. “I knew it was going to be a bit demoralising for him to be 6-3 down after that performance, so today was about getting a few frames early on and knocking the belief out of him.

“Coming into this event I was a lot more confident than I have been in the last three or four years. It’s nice to know I’m into the second round and I’ve got a few days off so I can sit back and watch other people sweat.”

It was a different matter for four-time champion Mark Selby, who is on the brink of falling at the first hurdle after losing his first session 7-3 to debutant Joe O’Connor.

Selby, who questioned his future in the sport after losing to Gary Wilson in the Tour Championship earlier this month, was second best against his Leicester rival, who reeled off five frames in a row to leave himself in a commanding position ahead of Monday’s resumption.

Eleventh seed Zhang Anda followed defending champion Luca Brecel out of the tournament as he was hammered 10-4 by last year’s surprise quarter-finalist Jak Jones.

Resuming 5-2 in front after their abridged opening session on Saturday, Jones chiselled his way over the line with a top break of 60, while Zhang’s 95 in the 13th frame proved much too little, too late.

Shaun Murphy fashioned a 6-3 lead over China’s Lyu Haotian despite a dreadful missed black in the fifth frame that briefly inspired his opponent to claw back a 3-1 deficit and level at 3-3.

Ronnie O’Sullivan says he is motivated by the opportunity to “ruin the careers” of his major rivals after he breezed into the ninth UK Championship final of his career with a 6-2 win over Hossein Vafaei in York.

Thirty years after he first won the title as a 17-year-old in 1993, O’Sullivan will face either Judd Trump or Ding Junhui on Sunday seeking to win a record-extending eighth crown and shut out one of the pair from building their own collection of silverware.

“I’m just hanging around so people don’t get as good as a career as me,” quipped O’Sullivan, who ruthlessly exploited a series of costly errors from his Iranian opponent to seal by far his most comfortable victory of a gruelling week.

“If I could stop (Mark) Selby winning a few, and Judd winning a few, and Ding and (Neil) Robertson winning a few – just ruin their careers a little bit – that would be great. Sometimes that’s just a nice motivation to play.”

O’Sullivan was hardly an underdog heading into his first meeting with Vafaei since their controversial Crucible clash in August, but the Iranian was certainly the man in form after rifling seven centuries across the tournament’s three previous rounds.

In contrast the 47-year-old O’Sullivan had laboured through consecutive final-frame deciders against Robert Milkins and Zhou Yuelong, often appearing wayward and unfocused for periods despite booking his place back in the last four.

While O’Sullivan looked more clear-headed throughout their quarter-final clash, his dominance was due in part to an underwhelming performance from Vafaei, for whom errors in five of the six frames won by his opponent served up a disappointingly one-sided encounter.

Vafaei ran aground on a break of 30 in the opener and O’Sullivan swept up with a break of 54 before a 113 in the second frame put him firmly in command.

Vafaei showed a glimmer of fight as his eighth century of the tournament started the charge back level, but O’Sullivan took an error-strewn fifth and restored his two-frame lead after Vafaei missed a shockingly easy red to the middle.

O’Sullivan jawed a shot to the same pocket in the next, but a missed black off its spot brought more pain for Vafaei and when he missed the same colour to the top pocket in the eighth frame, the Iranian’s hopes of reaching a first major career final were over.

“I feel as fresh as a daisy,” added a revitalised O’Sullivan afterwards. “These tournaments are not a problem. I can do it quite comfortably. I’m still happy to have got this far, it’s great and I have enjoyed my week.