RONNIE: I LET OFF ROCKET
NOISING THEM UP O’Sullivan admits ‘dropping his guts’ during match at Northern Ireland Open.. and then blaming ref
RONNIE O’SULLIVAN shattered the silence in an empty Milton Keynes arena yesterday by very loudly breaking wind.
The Rocket trumped during his Northern Ireland Open third-round match with Wales’ Matthew Stevens.
Reigning and six-time world champion O’Sullivan, 44, was trailing 2-1 in frames and 8-0 in points when he got set to take on a red.
But then came the fart that left him, opponent Stevens and referee Ben Williams unable to stop grinning.
World No.2 O’Sullivan looked up at Stevens and said “terrible guts” – but then cheekily tried to blame the official by asking “was that you?”.
Williams had immediately taken a large step to his left after the incident away from O’Sullivan – who went on to triumph 4-2.
And the referee went bright red as the camera also panned to him having been also placed in the frame.
Later O’Sullivan admitted: “I dropped my guts – I am taking full ownership of that. I have had stomach problems for a couple of months.
“I did say ‘was that you’ to the referee but I am proud of that one. As for the table – it is the heaters and the effect on the cloth. It is like taking clothes to the dry cleaners and they do them on too high a heat.”
The tournament office, home of the referees, also confirmed it was O’Sullivan after the match. With the tournament being played behind closed doors the number of possible culprits was always very limited.
Commentator Neal Foulds, unable to stop himself laughing, said: “That was an extremely unfortunate noise.”
In an incident-packed match O’Sullivan complained to Williams about the state of the table at the end of frame five.
The conditions have come under fire from other players this week including Mark Allen and O’Sullivan insisted the balls were “pinging” off the cushions which he blamed on those table heaters being turned up too high.
Earlier in the match in the first frame O’Sullivan played on requiring eight snookers on the final blue – something that is usually frowned upon in snooker etiquette.
While O’Sullivan marched on Scotland’s Stephen Maguire crashed out following an embarrassing whitewash.
He was hammered 4-0 by Tha i hot shot Noppon Saengkham in the last 32 and Maguire now knows he needs a deep run at next week’s UK Championship to book his spot at the 32-man World Grand Prix at the end of the year.
“I know I’m not currently in the World Grand Prix,” reflected Maguire, who is 36th on the one-year ranking list. “That’s my aim because it’s a proper tournament, I like that one.
“I’ll need to go on a bit of a run in the UKs if I am going to qualify.”