‘What’s your problem?’ – Williams explains why Vafaei stormed off without shaking hands

There was drama aplenty during Mark Williams’ World Grand Prix second-round match, as he was called for a seven point penalty for hiding the cue ball in his pocket, before opponent Hossein Vafaei stormed off without shaking hands.

The incident happened during the fifth frame of his 4-1 victory.

The Welshman had been set a tough safety to escape from by his opponent, twice missing a thin cut on a red to the left of the pack.

He erroneously hit the pink on the second attempt, and as referee Olivier Marteel was replacing the balls, the 48-year old put the white in his pocket, much to the amusement of the crowd.

The Belgian official was less impressed. “You know that’s a penalty seven,” he said, leaving Williams chuckling in disbelief. “You touched the ball during a consultation period, it’s in the rules.”

“World Snooker say ‘have a bit of fun, try and show your character’ and stuff like that,” a mystified Williams said afterwards.

“You do something like that, just to have a bit of fun, because it took him a while to get back, so I just picked it up and put it in my pocket, and I got fouled seven for it!

“What do they want? They want you to express yourself and have a bit of fun. When you do it, you get penalty points, so I won’t be doing that again!”

Thankfully for the three-time world champion, he was still able to go on and win the frame, registering a break of 75 to take the match.

That was far from the end of the drama though, as Vafaei, who conceded after Williams had missed a long pink, stormed out of the arena without shaking his opponent’s hand.

“I just pulled him up about it and said ‘what’s your problem’, and he said it was because I slapped my leg at the end, when I won,” the Welshman continued.

“I slapped my leg at the end because I shouldn’t have gone for the pink. I should have played safe.

“I thought he would have come back to the table and carried on for snookers. That’s why I was a bit fuming. He just stormed off, but if that’s the reason… I don’t care anyway!”

Earlier on in the evening, Vafaei had been left red-faced by a miscalculation that cost him the second frame.

Already trailing 1-0, the Iranian was set to make it 1-1 when he levelled the scored at 57-57 with just pink and black left on the table.

However, the 29-year old got his maths wrong, thinking he only needed to pot one more ball to take the frame.

That meant he didn’t play for position on the black, and a look of horror soon spread across his face when he realised his mistake.

After both players had missed attempted pots, Williams took the frame by cutting into the right middle.

He now progresses to face Cao Yupeng in the quarter-finals, following his impressive 4-0 whitewash of Shaun Murphy.

Stream top snooker action, including the Scottish Open, live on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com