Ronnie O’Sullivan could face trouble with the snooker authorities after appearing to make a rude hand gesture during his Welsh Open defeat to John Higgins.

The five-times world champion suffered a frustrating night on the baize as he crashed out of the ranking event losing 5-1 to one of his closest rivals in the game.

And O’Sullivan appeared to let his frustrations show when he ran out of position during the fourth frame of the quarter-final encounter.

Footage from Eurosport shows O’Sullivan, who has won four ranking events this season and is the campaign’s most dominant player by a far, making some sort of hand gesture in front of the camera as he walked around the table to play his next shot.

Snooker fan and Twitter user Liam Hayes tweeted the footage to O’Sullivan with the words ‘stay classy haha’.

It is not yet known whether O’Sullivan will face any disciplinary action over the incident. The Welsh Open continues at 1pm on Saturday with Barry Hawkins facing Noppon Seangkham in the first semi-final.

Higgins will face Gary Wilson in tonight’s semi-final starting at 7pm.