We study string corrections to one-loop amplitudes of single-particle operators O p in AdS 5 × S 5 . The tree-level correlators in supergravity enjoy an accidental 10d conformal symmetry. Consequently, one observes a partial degeneracy in the spectrum of anomalous dimensions of double-trace operators and at the same time equality of many different correlators for different external charges p i=1,2,3,4 . The one-loop contribution is expected to lift such bonus properties, and its precise form can be predicted from tree-level data and consistency with the operator product expansion.Here we present a closed-form Mellin space formula for O p 1 O p 2 O p 3 O p 4 at order (α ′ ) 3 , valid for arbitrary external charges p i . Our formula makes explicit the lifting of the bonus degeneracy among different correlators through a feature we refer to as 'sphere splitting'. While tree-level Mellin amplitudes come with a single crossing symmetric kernel, which defines the pole structure of the AdS 5 × S 5 amplitude, our one-loop amplitude naturally splits the S 5 part into two separate contributions. The amplitude also exhibits a remarkable consistency with the corresponding flat space IIB amplitude through the large p limit.1 The full normalisation is R p = p 2 (p − 1)