Hossein Vafei smashes up reds against Ronnie O’Sullivan in World Snooker Championship | Snooker News

Hossein Vafei smashes up the reds with opening break against Ronnie O’Sullivan in World Snooker Championship; Iranian’s shot deemed “disrespectful to snooker” by six-time world champion Steve Davis; Vafei had said O’Sullivan was “nice person when he was sleeping” ahead of match

Hossein Vafaei smashed open the reds from his opening break in his World Snooker Championship match with Ronnie O’Sullivan

Hossein Vafaei “disrespected the game of snooker” by smashing up the reds with his opening break against Ronnie O’Sullivan in their World Championship match, says Steve Davis.

Vafei had been annoyed by seven-time world champion O’Sullivan doing likewise in their German Masters qualifying encounter in 2021, something the Iranian seemed to reference in the build-up to their Crucible meeting when he said his opponent “was a nice person when he was sleeping”.

The 28-year-old shared an icy fist bump with O’Sullivan before Friday’s opening session and then broke wildly in the second frame, with O’Sullivan promptly knocking in a break of 78 to take a 2-0 lead in their best-of-25-frame second-round clash.

Speaking to the BBC, six-time world champion Steve Davis said: “It’s not good to see.

“I don’t think it is necessarily disrespectful to Ronnie, but it is maybe considered disrespectful to the game of snooker and the people who come along to watch, and want to see a great game.

“It’s not nice, it’s not good. It’s not a personal game, snooker, your problem is the table and the balls, not your opponent.”

After Vafei won frame three, Davis added: “He is not cut from the same lump of wood as me. How can you smash the balls up in a World Championship? I don’t understand how you can then play great in the next frame.

“What type of brain can do that? I don’t know where he’s coming from, but to win that frame after embarrassing yourself – how on earth can you concentrate after that?”

O’Sullivan went on to clinch frame four to take a 3-1 lead into the mid-session interval.

The winner of this match will face either Mark Williams or Luca Brecel in the quarter-finals.