BBC Sportsnooker

Ronnie O'Sullivan showed glimpses of his better form as he wrapped up a 10-5 win over Liu Chuang at The Crucible.

Having struggled to a 5-4 lead on Wednesday, O'Sullivan appeared to be in a similar vein in a scrappy opening.

But fluent breaks of 61 and 65, either side of a pugnacious 53 from Liu, helped him open an 8-5 lead.

O'Sullivan twice fell well short of audacious 147 breaks but still sealed an ultimately comfortable win to set up a second-round tie with Mark Williams.

It was a more relaxed O'Sullivan that emerged to a decent Crucible crowd than had been on show on Wednesday, when uncharacteristic errors had allowed Liu to remain in touch.

Even so, the world number five looked out of sorts in frame 10 as he and Liu missed simple pots, until a run of 61 helped him secure a two-frame lead.

In a bid to settle any nerves and relax his cueing action, O'Sullivan played a number of shots left-handed - and then deliberately fouled on the last red with the 11th frame already secure by sprawling across the table with both feet off the floor.

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Liu, 17, was first among the balls in the next frame and a run of 53 ultimately proved enough to take it after O'Sullivan missed the brown when attempting to clear up.

However, O'Sullivan continued to go for his shots and after a break of 65 put him 8-5 up, he targeted 147 breaks in frames 16 and 17 - first missing the eighth red and then suffering a kick having potted five reds and blacks.

Liu failed to take advantage, though his 43 break in the 16th frame was his highest of the session, and O'Sullivan emerged from a lengthy safety exchange to seal the final frame on the black.

Following his victory, though, O'Sullivan admitted he has struggled to cope with the furore surrounding the lewd comments and sexual innuendos he made during a recent news conference in China.

If anyone has a problem then I will quite happily take my punishment and walk O'Sullivan on his lewd comments at the China Open

And the 32-year-old has volunteered to withdraw from tournaments if anyone has been offended by his antics following his loss to Marco Fu in the China Open in Beijing last month, when he also brandished a hand-held microphone suggestively.

"I regret that it happened and it's been a great embarrassment to me personally," he said.

"It's been really hard the last three weeks to concentrate on my game and it still is, because I feel that certain things which have been said are just not true.

"If anyone has a problem then I will quite happily take my punishment and walk away. I'll voluntarily pull out of tournaments if that's what it takes because I don't want to bring this game down. I love snooker.

"I'd be quite happy to walk away and find something else to do. I wouldn't want to be somewhere where I thought I was causing trouble. If I'm that much of a problem, that bad an advert for the game and I'm that awful, then okay, but I don't really see it like that."