Ronnie O’Sullivan was left wondering whether the problem was him or his cue as he suffered a shock exit from the World Snooker Championship.
The seven-time world champion lost 17-7 to China’s Zhao Xintong in the semi-final.
He was comprehensively outplayed, losing all eight frames in Friday morning’s session.
The crushing defeat saw Zhao establish a commanding 12-4 lead, ultimately securing his place in the Crucible final.
Zhao becomes only the second Chinese player to reach this stage, following in the footsteps of Ding Junhui.
O’Sullivan had trailed 4-4 overnight, prompting him to change the tip and ferrule of his cue. However, the adjustment seemed to backfire, as his performance deteriorated dramatically on Friday.
The defeat marks a disappointing end to a tournament where O’Sullivan had already shown signs of frustration with his equipment.
He had been absent from the tour since January, having withdrawn mid-way through the Championship League after snapping his cue in frustration following a string of losses.
But he was unsure whether the cue he used in Sheffield was to blame for his exit or if it was his game.
O’Sullivan said: “I don’t even know if it was the cue, the ferrule or me. There were three things.
“I just don’t even know where the white ball’s going. I’m at a loss, to be honest with you. I don’t even know what to say.
“Sometimes you’ve got to try something different, you know? It didn’t feel great before so I tried to go back to the old brass ferrule.
“I’m not making the cue as an excuse or anything like that but if I hadn’t snapped my old cue maybe I’d have been able to give him a better game but really my performances have not been good enough.”
The Englishman’s hopes of winning an eighth world crown are now over for another year but he insisted that was not even in his thoughts.
“It doesn’t really bother me,” he said. “I’ve never kind of fallen into that thing of ‘I want to win an eighth’, I just want to come here and enjoy the snooker.”
When asked how he felt during the hours after being whitewashed in the morning session, O’Sullivan added: “I wasn’t that bothered. I wasn’t surprised.
“I’ve been playing like that quite a lot in practice and it’s just hard to get my head around. And I can’t even fix it, that’s the problem. I don’t even think I can fix it.
“I know I said I’d like to try and give it two years but if you’re going to play like that it’s pretty pointless. It’s not good.”
Sheffield-based Zhao, whose aggressive break-building piled the pressure on his opponent throughout the match, admitted having mixed thoughts over beating his hero O’Sullivan.
He said: “He’s my idol. To be honest I didn’t want to win this time because I wanted to see him win his eighth here.
“But I won and I know I needed to play well because before the match I didn’t think I could win.
“I know he’s a legend and everyone wanted him to win this tournament and I could feel that.
“I know it’ll be really hard (to win the title). Everyone says no Chinese player has won this before but I’ll just try to enjoy today.”
In the other semi-final Mark Williams fought back from a four-frame deficit against Judd Trump to level at 8-8 ahead of their resumption on Saturday morning.
