Jimmy White warned about behaviour after referee laughs at his own error | Veteran appears to give official the middle finger | Snooker News

Jimmy White, 60, repeatedly asked the referee, “what’s funny about that?” after the referee made a mistake and laughed at his error. Luca Brecel beat White to progress to the third round of the BetVictor Northern Ireland Open.

Jimmy White lost the match 4-0

Snooker player Jimmy White has been warned about his behaviour after he took exception to the referee laughing during a 4-0 defeat to Luca Brecel in the second round of the BetVictor Northern Ireland Open.

The 60-year-old was 3-0 down when Ben Williams incorrectly nominated the blue ball instead of the brown when White potted a red in the first frame, and then he laughed at his error when corrected by the player.

White asked the referee several times, “what’s funny about that?”, before appearing to stick his middle finger up at Williams in footage posted on Twitter by Eurosport.

He was handed a warning for “gesticulating” with words also being exchanged after the match when all parties had shaken hands.

White missed the brown ball following the incident with the referee and ended up losing to Brecel, who had breaks of 106, 50 and 59.

John Higgins made a spectacular comeback to beat Jackson Page 4-3, taking the sixth and seventh frames. Page had earlier leveled the match 1-1 with a 128 clearance.

However, in the sixth, he missed a red to allow Higgins to clear up and force a decider, which he then won with a 124 break.

In the morning match, Pang Junxu beat Matthew Selt 4-0.