Ali Carter admitted the second session of his World Snooker Championship defeat to old foe Ronnie O'Sullivan was 'embarrassing'. The pair resumed their first-round match with the Rocket leading 5-4 on Wednesday afternoon, and Carter lost five frames on the bounce to go tumbling out of the tournament.

Carter made a game of it when they first got going on Tuesday. O'Sullivan showed signs of rust after spending more than three months out of competitive action, but he still took a slender lead into their second and final session. Once there, the Rocket smelled blood and found extra gears as his opponent's game fell apart.

Carter told the BBC: "I was always in it at 5-4 but Ronnie got going and I just seemed to find myself in awkward positions. I split the pack a couple of times and missed a couple of blacks off the cushion when I couldn't really get on anything. It just went from bad to worse and it sort of begins to get a little bit embarrassing out there."

The Crucible match-up was hotly-anticipated due to the pair's fractious history, which includes shoulder barging at the table and insults hurled in press conferences. But it ended up being played in sportsmanlike fashion, and afterwards, Carter hailed O'Sullivan as the best ever.

"I’m playing the greatest player of all time, it’s not easy, but I'll be back next year," he said. "We’re sportsmen, we both want to win and he was the much better player today.

"It’s not the end to the season I wanted here but arguably Ronnie is the hardest draw in the first round. He's probably the one everyone doesn't want to play for obvious reasons, he's the most successful player of all time. I drew him out of the hat and that's how it is."

A massively one-sided head-to-head record suggested that Carter was always likely to find it tough against O'Sullivan, regardless of the time the Rocket has taken away from the table.

Prior to this week's affair, O'Sullivan won their previous clash in last year's Masters final, after which he told Carter to 'sort his f***ing life out' in a fiery press conference. Their last World Snooker Championship meeting, in 2018, saw Carter prevail 13-9 and celebrate wildly in front of the Crucible crowd after O'Sullivan had barged into him during the 19th frame.