RONNIE O’SULLIVAN had to call out a referee’s blunder during his clash with Jackson Page.

The awkward incident occurred during the first round of the World Snooker Championship.

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‘The Rocket’ made a fine start with breaks of 54, 56, 81, 122, 66 and 53 to give him a dominant lead over Page going into today.

That is despite O’Sullivan suffering an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction during the opening day.

The seven-time winner needed just two frames to make it into the second round when play resumed earlier.

But the amusing incident came when the 48-year-old was 91-4 up in the ninth frame after ref Leo Scullion mistakenly placed the pink ball on the blue spot.

O’Sullivan quickly jumped in as he used his cue to point further down the board to the pink’s correct location.

That led to Scullion apologising as the crowd started laughing before the icon wrapped up the frame to take an 8-1 lead.

Scullion joined the PRA in 1999.

He has since become one of snooker’s top referees and took charge of the 2019 World Championship final.

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O’Sullivan, who looks set to face Ryan Day in the second round, is aiming to become the first person to ever win the big one at the Crucible eight times to take him ahead of fellow legend Stephen Hendry.

But he was modest as ever when asked about it recently, saying: “I don’t regard myself as the greatest.

“I’m one of them, maybe. You’ve got Hendry, [six-time world champion Steve] Davis, and my hat’s in the ring with them.

“I’ve had a different career to them. They did it over a ten-year period, whereas I’ve sort of gone off track, got myself together, back off track, then got myself back together.

“I’ve had to go on longer to get what I’ve got. I was a bit all over the show at times with stuff going on off the table.

“That can affect how you perform on it. Hendry and Davis pretty much had everything fitted around them to be focused on snooker and I didn’t have that. You want to win because competitiveness has been in me.

“I have to have that approach no matter what. Whether that makes me the greatest or not, I don’t know.

“It doesn’t really matter. I’m pretty cool with what I’ve done, but I’d like to win more though.”

Inside Ronnie’s colourful career

FROM his lightning breaks to blasts at officials, Ronnie O’Sullivan has fired snooker into the spotlight.

O’Sullivan has just penned a three-year ambassadorial deal with Saudi Arabia after winning the inaugural World Snooker Tour (WST) event in the Middle East nation.

That stopped any retirement talk – and Matchroom president Barry Hearn is backing him to make history at Crucible over the coming days.

He said: “I think Ronnie O’Sullivan will win it again.

“An amazing victory for the ambassador of snooker in Saudi Arabia.”