Ronnie O'Sullivan celebrated victory over Barry Hawkins in the Coral Players Championship in Preston by attempting to talk in a bizarre Australian accent in his post-match interviews.
World number three O'Sullivan withstood Hawkins' fightback to seal a 6-4 first-round win at the Guild Hall and set up a last-eight clash against either Mark Selby or John Higgins.
"I dip in with a bit of Cockney, a bit of Australian and a bit of Scouse, you know what I mean, mate? It's all good. I should have been an impersonator," O'Sullivan told BBC Lancashire Sport.
When asked if there was any particular reason why he was trying to talk like an Australian, the five-time world champion from Essex said: "No, mate, I just feel totally positive.
"When you talk Aussie, the Aussies are just winners, mate, you know? You've got to love a winner.
"Us English, we love a loser, so I thought I'm fed up of being a loser, I'm going to talk like a winner, like the Aussies. Get the Ashes won, mate."
Defending champion O'Sullivan began with an opening-frame break of 106 against Hawkins and led 3-0 and 5-2 before his opponent made a fight of it.
The world number 10 clinched his first frame with a break of 104 in the fourth and a superb 110 in the ninth reduced the deficit to 5-4, but O'Sullivan closed it out by scoring 64 in the next.
We interviewed Ronnie O'Sullivan after his 6-4 victory over Barry Hawkins in the Coral Players Championship....@ronnieo147 decided to do the whole interview with an AUSTRALIAN accent 😂🇦🇺
— Coral (@Coral) March 4, 2019
Never change, Ronnie.#CoralSnookerSeries pic.twitter.com/wEJZQsUEJa
Mark Allen, who won the 2016 title, will play David Gilbert or Stuart Bingham in the last eight on Thursday evening after overcoming Stephen Maguire 5-2.
