Ronnie O’Sullivan: ‘Anti-fluke’ costs Rocket frame against Luca Brecel at World Snooker Championship

Brecel missed frame ball when taking on a red to the top left corner wobbled the jaws, so was 54 ahead with 59 remaining.

The seven-time world champion tried to lay a snooker behind the yellow only for the white to go in-off, and Eurosport commentator Neal Foulds suggested O’Sullivan wanted to concede the frame after exchanging a few light-hearted words with Brecel.

However, in snooker, if you concede a frame when you mathematically don’t need snookers, you risk being fined.

Instead, O’Sullivan tried to play safe with his next shot by playing a red near right cushion across the table. But, the red dropped into the bottom left pocket.

Although some of the Crucible crowd clapped the pot, it was not good news for O’Sullivan because he now needed to pot the pink or black to not require snookers.

“He did not want that in,” said Foulds on commentary. “That is not in his favour at all. That’s an anti-fluke really.”

O’Sullivan tried an ambitious pot at the black but missed, so conceded the frame and had his lead reduced to 10-9.

It went from bad to worse for The Rocket as he lost the next four frames as he bowed out of the tournament in a remarkable match.

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