Ronnie O’Sullivan slams hygiene at leisure centre - then gets dumped out of tournament

The five-time world champion, who has maintained his criticism of the venue which he described as a “hell-hole” last year, posted a tweet yesterday which purported to illustrate hygiene issues at the venue’s restaurant.

Beneath a picture appearing to show food waste beneath a table, O’Sullivan wrote: “The floor at K2 Crawley Restaurant not looking too clean”, adding the hashtags #hygiene and #healthandsafety.

His remarks were given short shrift by both World Snooker and the leisure centre operators before O’Sullivan’s turbulent week, at least in competition, was ended after he lost a final-frame shootout against Mei Xiwen.

O’Sullivan had beaten Hossein Vafaei 4-1 earlier in the day and a 134 break established a 3-2 lead against Mei, who stormed back to force a decider where breaks of 52 and 71 saw the Chinese claim a famous fourth-round win. Shaun Murphy was also sent packing last night but only after Tom Ford’s match-winning maximum 147 break sealed a 4-3 success.

Reigning world champion Judd Trump crashed out at the last-32 stage after a 4-2 defeat to Lee Walker, while world No 4 Neil Robertson was whitewashed 4-0 by Zhao Xintong. Walker, who reached the quarter-finals of the 1997 World Championships, clinched the last two frames with breaks of 59 and 65.