- The wasp made its appearance on Tuesday evening during the snooker Masters
- It was recorded by the match referee, who briefly interrupted the match
- The insect distracted darts stars during the World Darts Championship
The wasp that wreaked havoc at Alexandra Palace during the World Darts Championship may have enjoyed its last appearance at a major sporting event for a while.
The insect briefly interrupted the Masters round of 16 showdown between Barry Hawkins and Neil Robertson.
The latter attempted to catch the insert on the table, before referee Rob Spencer intervened and successfully caught it in a glass.
Spencer then slid a scorecard under the glass and lifted the glass off the sheet, before finally releasing the wasp from the table.
After his 6-3 defeat to Hawkins, Robertson said he would have liked to tackle the wasp himself.
The Ally Pally wasp was caught during the Masters on Tuesday night
Match referee Rob Spencer stopped the match between Neil Roberson and Barry Hawkins
He then caught the wasp under a glass before releasing it from the sheet
“I’m from Australia, we have spiders so I’m used to it,” he joked.
The insect stole the headlines at the World Darts Championship at the Ally Pally earlier this month when it stung Luke Littler towards the end of his quarter-final against Brendan Dolan.
Not that the incident bothered the teenager as he saw off the Wasp and his opponent to secure a 5-1 victory that took him to the semi-finals.
‘I felt a little zap, I saw it (the wasp) fluttering around towards the end. It’s my throwing arm,” the 16-year-old told Sky Sports afterwards.
“It didn’t bother me.”
Earlier in the tournament, the wasp stung Ross Smith during his 3-1 win over Niels Zonneveld in the second round.
“There’s the wasp,” Smith said in his post-match interview
“He just stabbed me like a good one. Little bastard.’
He told me later The sun: ‘I have been stung three times, tomorrow I will be like the Elephant Man. It went ping, ping, ping and flew away. Luckily it’s my left hand.’
After the Wasp break, Hawkins set up a quarter-final clash with seven-time champion Ronnie O’Sullivan by avenging defeat to Robertson in the 2022 final.
The pair shared the first two frames before Hawkins began to gain the upper hand from a series of lengthy safety battles to take a 4-1 lead.
Robertson, fresh from a celebratory trip back home in a bid to recharge for the remainder of the campaign, proved he was ready for battle with successive breaks of 117 and 110 to reduce the deficit to one frame.
Two-time Masters finalist Hawkins was one frame away from victory with a stroke of 69.
Luke Littler was stung by a wasp at the Ally Pally in his quarter-final win over Brendan Dolan
Ross Smith was stung by a wasp on the World Championship podium in December
He missed a golden opportunity early in the next when he fell out of position after potting the opening red, but recovered to advance to a showdown with O’Sullivan, who beat him 10-1 in the 2016 final.
“I haven’t beaten Neil in a long time, so it’s really nice to beat him here,” Hawkins said.
‘We all know he’s struggling with a bit of form, so when he comes into this match there’s always a bit of pressure because he hasn’t done anything all season.
“You can see he wasn’t full of confidence, but he showed signs of getting back at me and it was nice to finish the game.”