Northern Ireland Open: Jimmy White leaves arena with bizarre concession, confusion for both referee and opponent
Jimmy White was involved in another bizarre incident at the 2024 Northern Ireland Open as he attempted to reach the last 16 in Belfast. Taking on Martin O’Donnell, the 62-year-old abruptly left the arena towards the end of the fifth frame much to the surprise of the referee and his opponent. Stream the Northern Ireland Open live on Eurosport and discovery+.
Crowd favourite Jimmy White caused confusion during his third-round match against Martin O’Donnell at the Northern Ireland Open when he abruptly left the arena to concede the fifth frame.
With the score poised at 2-2 in the race to four, live on discovery+, the 62-year-old missed a red and left it hanging over the bottom-left corner to give O’Donnell a simple chance to move ahead for the first time.
O’Donnell made no mistake to go 44 points ahead with 43 still on the table, but White, clearly frustrated that he had failed to make more of his opportunity, wandered out of the arena in a bizarre concession.
It caught both the referee and O’Donnell off-guard before the frame was awarded to the 38-year-old.
White did return for the sixth frame, which followed a similar pattern to the fifth, as O’Donnell sealed an impressive comeback victory to reach the last 16.
While it was not addressed after the match, O’Donnell had nothing but praise for ‘The Whirlwind’ when he spoke to Eurosport.
“Any win against Jimmy is a good win, he’s such a legend of the game and an inspiration for a lot of players,” O’Donnell told Alan McManus.
“To still be doing what he’s doing at his age and still enjoying practising and competing, it’s very inspirational.”
It was the second successive match in which White was involved in a strange incident.
In the previous round against Hossein Vafaei, the Iranian was penalised when the referee determined he had placed the white outside the D towards the end of the sixth frame, a decision which had a significant bearing on the match as White took advantage to win 4-2.
O’Donnell, continuing his career renaissance after losing his tour card two years ago, will take on world No. 27 Pang Junxu in the last 16.