Ronnie O'Sullivan forced to apologise to Barry Hawkins following their quarter-final match at The Masters

Ronnie O'Sullivan hilariously apologised to Barry Hawkins during his post-match interview following his victory at The Masters.

O'Sullivan beat Hawkins 6-4 in a below-par-performance to book his spot in the semi-finals of the competition.

'The Rocket' took the first frame, but 'The Hawk' secured back-to-back half-centuries to go 3-2 following the interval.

The game was then riddled with misses and mistakes as O'Sullivan completely fluffed his shot at the pink ball.

However, the Snooker legend managed to secure a 6-4 victory and admitted he was 'lucky' to advance to the next round.

The 48-year-old also apologised to Hawkins for 'dragging him down to the most awful standard of snooker'.

He said: "I just feel sorry for Barry. He was playing good until he started playing me and I just dragged him down to the most awful standard of snooker.

"So I’m really sorry about that today. I’m just lucky to get through."

Hawkins added: "I felt good going into the game today and I felt good out there. For some reason your mind wanders a bit when you play Ronnie. I let him off the hook, I had enough chances.

"Kept losing the white today, the cue ball wasn’t very good. I had plenty of chances, no complaints. It’s the way it goes."

O'Sullivan said he apologised to Hawkins after the game and claimed his opponent would have upped his game if he had played better himself.

"I said 'sorry mate', I felt bad for him because if I’d have played alright, he’d have played alright," he said in another interview.

"I’ve just got this ability that if I play bad they play even worse. Not everybody, some of the guys punish me, but it’s just how it is."

O'Sullivan will meet either Jack Lisowski or Shaun Murphy in the semi-finals.