O'Sullivan suffers shock defeat

Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan brushed off his show of petulance during his shock 9-5 defeat by Joe Perry as "no big deal".

The world number one, who had led 5-3 overnight at the UK Championship, found himself 5-6 down after the first three frames of the afternoon and conceded the 12th frame just before the mid-session interval by deliberately flicking the white away with his cue when just 23-0 down. O'Sullivan claimed he had not meant to offend Perry and was gracious enough to concede this year's World Championship semi-finalist had deserved his win. "It is just a little £250 fine, a letter in the post," he told BBC Sport. "I have had a few of them before, and I will have a few more I suppose. "I was quite happy I did it really. I just wanted to get out of there, have a cup of tea and come back again. But it still didn't make a difference really. It is no big deal." "I just got outplayed on the day," he added. "It might have looked like I lost my head or whatever, but I'm sure I'll bounce back somewhere along the line. "He played great - I wasn't going to win today. His safety was great, he scored when he got in and didn't miss much. Sometimes you've just got to hold your hands up."