Ronnie O'Sullivan ended a week plagued by problems by bizarrely biting the tip off his cue during a whitewash defeat in the Welsh Open quarter-final.
The 5-0 defeat at the hands of world No.53 Tian Pengfei means that O'Sullivan has failed to qualify for next week's Players Championship. O'Sullivan was bidding for a record-equalling fifth Welsh Open crown in Llandudno this week but has suffered severe problems with the tip of his cue during several matches.
The issues started in his second round match against Ross Muir when the world No.1 was forced off the table in consecutive frames. The Rocket was shocked to discover that his tip had flown off while knocking in the final pink of the second frame.
After taking a 10-minute break to fix the problem tip O'Sullivan returned and was left frustrated when the same problem happened again. Despite his issues the Rocket won the match 4-3, but the problems re-emerged 24 hours later when O'Sullivan offered to forfeit his match against Rod Lawler.
When Lawler refused to take the bye O'Sullivan triumphed 4-0 before also disposing of Ben Mertens by the same whitewash score-line in the last-16.
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However, in his quarter-final match O'Sullivan looked out of sorts as Pengfei comfortably progressed with a dominant 5-0 victory. As the Chinese star wrapped up the final frame the seven-time world champion took his aggression out on his cue biting the tip off.
Ronnie O’Sullivan bit the tip off cue moments before his whitewash defeat to Tian Pengfei was confirmed (@WeAreWST/Twitter)Will Ronnie O'Sullivan win a record eighth world championship title this year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section
Despite his cue issues O'Sullivan insisted that he had mentally dealt with problems well.
"It was what it was, you have to deal with reality and what is thrown at you, I score myself with how I dealt with it mentally a 9.5 out of 10 today," he told Eurosport afterwards.
"Play wise I was probably a bit lower, quite low down on potting balls on the technical side. I felt I dealt with it mentally very, very well and I've come out of that feeling okay."
Cue problems have plagued Ronnie O'Sullivan during this week's Welsh Open (Colin Poultney/ProSports/REX/Shutterstock)Only the top-16 players in the one-year ranking list qualify for next week's Players Championship and O'Sullivan needed to make the Welsh Open final to book his spot and minimum prize pot of £35,000 for qualifying.
However, the Rocket will now have time to send his cue off for repair before planning to play at the Six Reds tournament in Thailand next month.
"You have to deal with reality, accept it and move on," O'Sullivan added. "I've got a few tournaments to look forward to and hopefully get ready for Thailand now."
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