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Ronnie O'Sullivan was in scintillating form at The Crucible

Ronnie O'Sullivan hit a breathtaking 147 to seal a 13-7 victory over Mark Williams and cruise into the last eight of the World Championship in Sheffield.

O'Sullivan led 9-7 going into the final session and continued to cue beautifully as he extended his lead.

Breaks of 71 and 60 added to the lead before a 100 took him to the brink.

O'Sullivan then polished his opponent off with the ninth maximum of his career and his third at the Crucible, a venue that has only seen seven in all.

O'SULLIVAN'S 147 BREAKS: April 1997 at World Champ Jan 1999 at Welsh Open Oct 1999 at Grand Prix April 2000 at Scottish Open Oct 2001 at LG Cup April 2003 at World Champ Nov 2007 at N Ireland Trophy Dec 2007 at UK Champ April 2008 at World Champ

The 32-year-old will pick up a prize of £157,000 - £147,000 for the maximum plus £10,000 for the highest break - as long as no other player repeats the feat during the rest of the tournament.

The break took O'Sullivan eight minutes and 47 seconds to complete, three minutes longer than the astonishing world record time of 5:20 he set against Mick Price in 1997.

"As soon as I got on the first red I thought that I had to go for the 147," O'Sullivan told BBC Sport.

"Obviously it's more important to win the game but that money gives me a few options in the summer. I'll be getting a Bentley Convertible now - I've been dying to get one!

"The difference between this season and the last 13 seasons is that I've stumbled across a couple of things and kept my discipline with it and stayed patient.

"So I've never hit disastrous standards - before as soon as it went wrong I just wanted to get out of there."

O'Sullivan never put a foot wrong as he thrilled The Crucible crowd, while play stopped between Neil Robertson and Stephen Maguire on the other table inside the theatre.

In potting the 13th black, O'Sullivan released the last two reds with an exquisite cannon - and made the rest of the frame straightforward.

Former world champion Dennis Taylor, who commentated on the break for BBC Sport, described it as one of the finest positional shots he had ever seen.

O'Sullivan, who will face Liang Wenbo in the quarter-finals, now has the record for the most competitive maximum breaks, having previously been tied with Stephen Hendry on eight.

He added: "I really did think I was going to get beaten.

"I expected Mark to really make it count because he's a big game player.

"I had packed my bags because I thought it was one of those games that was going to get away from me."

Defeat for two-time world champion Williams means he will now drop out of the world's top 16, and will thus have to go through qualifying to make the ranking tournaments.

606: DEBATE Give your thoughts on Ronnie's stunning maximum

"I've made a big improvement from 12 or 18 months ago but it's still quite rubbish really," said Williams.

"I've got to go to the qualifiers now and I deserve to be going there at the end of the day. Hopefully I can try to get back into the top 16.

"I gave a lot of frames away when I was 50-odd up and kept missing frame ball.

"I could have been well in front after the first two sessions and instead he was.

"But the 147 was an excellent break. It's only him who can do a break like that and make it look so easy. I knew he was going to go for it from the moment he was going for the first red.

"He didn't look out of position once."