Ronnie O’Sullivan hangs head in disbelief after unbelievable foul vs Hawkins at Masters
Ronnie O'Sullivan could not believe the foul he made in his Masters quarter-final against Barry Hawkins.
A stunned Ronnie O'Sullivan could only hang his head on the snooker table at Alexandra Palace after making an unbelievable foul in his Masters quarter-final against Barry Hawkins. An error-ridden first few frames reached a new low when the Rocket had eyes on the pink, but instead bizarrely gave up four points to his opponent on Thursday afternoon.
The match was finely poised at the time, with O'Sullivan down 3-2 and in the frame he trailed by a single point at 37-36, but a simple pink was set to give the 48-year-old the lead and a chance to tie.
O'Sullivan was preparing to send the pink into the middle pocket, but miscued and clipped the white ball at the wrong angle, forcing it to miss the pink entirely and by some margin as the Ally Pally crowd gasped in disbelief.
The seven-time Masters champion could not believe the mistake he had made and hung his head on the table, before Hawkins returned to the table.
O'Sullivan did get another chance soon after, as Hawkins returned the favour and was not able to put his opponent away in what would have been a 4-2 lead - instead the Rocket returned to the table and tied.
However, in a quarter-final where O'Sullivan had been the heavy favourite, he struggled in the opening exchanges and a comedy of errors from both players ensured that the scrappy game would swing back and forth throughout.
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Even this happens to the GOAT of snooker @ronnieo147 #MastersSnooker #TheRocket pic.twitter.com/YlesZBVFrR
— Saud Ahmed (@saudi89) January 11, 2024
The next frame saw O'Sullivan move into a 4-3 lead after Hawkins misjudged whether a red close to the black would go into the corner pocket, his miss allowed the Rocket to clean up.
But O'Sullivan's miss in the sixth could be put down to complacency, after admitting that Hawkins is a player who "doesn't bring the fight" and force him to play his top game.
“There are certain players that you just think are not up for the fight,” O’Sullivan said in 2022. “They are great players or very good players, but you just know that they don’t believe that they can beat you, and you kind of have an easier time against those guys.
“It is not their fault, it is just their personalities. They are just nice guys. It is like Barry Hawkins: he is such a nice guy and a fantastic player, but because he is so nice he doesn’t bring the fight enough."