Ronnie O'Sullivan punches table in angry World Snooker Championship moment

punched the table during his on Wednesday morning. The 49-year-old was visibly angry, despite the fact he had built up a 7-3 lead against his quarter-final rival.

O'Sullivan has been in fine form during the early stages of this year's World Championship and has already seen off Ali Carter and Junxu Pang in his opening two matches of the tournament. And he was imperious during the first day of action against Si as he gained a 6-2 overnight lead at the Crucible.

The players returned to the arena on Wednesday morning to continue their match, with O'Sullivan winning the first frame of the morning. But his Chinese opponent hit back to claim the next frame after racking up a break of 101.

O'Sullivan would have been desperate to see off Si at the earliest opportunity and was amongst the balls with a 22-point lead in frame 11. But after potting the pink, the cue ball landed too close to the cushion for his liking as his next red became more tricky than it might have been.

And the veteran was clearly riled by his poor positional play as he banged his fist onto the table.

Following the display of anger, Shaun Murphy explained on the BBC: "A bit of frustration showing this morning from Ronnie O'Sullivan. He is trying to push the cue ball into that red and you can see what he thinks of it."

Seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry then pointed towards an earlier shot in the break that may have upset O'Sullivan as he added: "Yeah I think that frustration was building from the shot from the yellow, not landing perfectly on the red."

O'Sullivan immediately made amends for his minor setback by potting the next red and landing on the blue. He eventually saw the frame out to move into an 8-3 lead.

"He's rescued the situation," Hendry exclaimed. And Murphy added: "Yeah we're so used to seeing Ronnie's pinpoint accurate cue ball control.

"We've not seen that here at the moment, he's really having to work for these. That cue ball's doing a lot more steps than it would do normally."

O'Sullivan is the second favourite to win this year's World Championship title, with Judd Trump leading the field as the favourite.

Ahead of the tournament, the Rocket hadn't played a competitive match since during a Championship League encounter with Robert Milkins in January.

But he has quickly found his feet in Sheffield and may now be quietly confident of going all the way, despite the fact he has admitted he's at the Crucible.