STUART Bingham admits he took his eye off the balls as the thought of reaching the UK Snooker Championship final ultimately proved his downfall in defeat to Ronnie O’Sullivan.

The Vange-based professional shocked the Barbican early on, surging to a lead of 3-1 at the mid-session interval as O’Sullivan struggled to assert his usual dominance.

The 38-year-old took another huge step upon the restart after a fantastic break of 137 but you can never count the Rocket out – who swiftly pegged the scores back to 4-4.

Bingham momentarily stopped the rot to go within one frame of victory, but clearances of 117 and 94 saw O’Sullivan through to Sunday’s final.

“When I thought about the final, I think that was the turning point,” Bingham admitted. “It’s not every day you get the chance to reach the UK final and I just lost my timing for a few frames.

“I wasn’t really thinking about the fact that I was beating Ronnie, but what an opportunity I had. I just tightened up and it went a bit wrong.

Echo:

Ronnie O'Sullivan celebrates winning through to the final of the UK Championship

“At 4-4, to go 5-4 up, I thought I just needed a sniff. I missed a pink into the yellow pocket and that was so close, I thought that might have been it. Then he made a 100 from that and I didn’t get a chance in the last.

"I felt a bit lost, the game just disappeared. Ronnie said at the end ‘if it was a boxing match he’d have stopped the fight, you were smashing me up’.

“But it isn’t out of four frames, it’s out of six. I felt very good, very comfortable, but one shot lost my timing and the rest is history.”

Nevertheless the UK Championship has been a hugely productive hunting ground for Bingham of late, having at least reached the quarter-finals for four of the last five years.

Echo:

Precious metal - the UK Championship trophy that Stuart Bingham was trying to win

He added: “I’ll get over it very quickly, to copy what I did last year was great – literally copied it, losing out in the final frame in the semis.

“I’ve lost a couple of finals before so I’ll take some confidence and the positives out of this week.”

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