Former world champion Stuart Bingham vented his anger at a crowd member after crashing out of the Betway UK Championship at the York Barbican.

The 43-year-old met four-time Crucible winner John Higgins with a spot in the last eight of the first Triple Crown event at stake, and took an early 2-0 lead to give him hope of progression.

But flashes of poor form from Bingham saw him eventually fall 6-4 to his Scottish opponent, and he identified one of a series of off-the-table distractions as part of the reason he never fully found his rhythm.

“Some idiot’s phone went off as I went down to take a shot that would’ve put me on track to go 5-4 up,” he said. “That sort of thing is pathetic and if he’d been close enough I think I would’ve knocked him out!

“It just put me in a bad frame of mind and 99 times out of 100 I would’ve slotted the ball in, but I missed and John being John he came in, cleared up and suddenly he’s in front.

“It was a tough match. I never really got going and I couldn’t make the breaks that I was making earlier in the competition.

“Things that could’ve gone wrong went wrong and it’s very frustrating. I’d been playing well and feeling good throughout the tournament, but unfortunately it just didn’t work out today.”

Having made the quarter-finals of the World Open and the third round of the Northern Ireland Open in November, Bingham had arrived in Yorkshire with hopes of going further than his previous UK Championship best, with three semi-final appearances to his name.

But while the world number 12 admitted he feels as though he is failing to get the rub of the green in the latter stages of tournaments this season, he insisted he is fully focused on his quick return to action at the Scottish Open next week.

He said: “Today was a good example of how it’s been going for me after I’ve started well at different tournaments. John was there for the taking and in the end he scored on what I left him, so it is frustrating.

“It’s going to be hard to take for a couple of days but I’ve got to get back on the practice table and put some hours in ahead of my next match against Matthew Stevens in Scotland. That’ll be tough so I’ve got to make sure I’m ready.”

Watch the UK Championship live on Eurosport and Eurosport Player with analysis from Ronnie O’Sullivan and Jimmy White.