Category: Ronnie O’Sullivan

Ronnie O’Sullivan believes he would be “a world champion” in motorsport and could challenge Lewis Hamilton had he not been a snooker player.

O’Sullivan is regarded as the greatest cueist of all time and he remains the world No. 1 as the circuit takes in the World Championship.

The 48-year-old may continue to pick and choose which of the events he takes part in but he remains by most judges the most naturally talented player in the game.

This year he has won five tournaments – including the UK Masters – and speaking to Eurosport he was asked what he would be doing had he not discovered snooker.

He said: “I’d probably be challenging Lewis Hamilton, round a Formula 1 track, probably give him a good run for his money as well – because I’m a bit nifty in a car.

“I think I was actually gifted to be a good driver. I’d have definitely been a world champion at some sort of motorsport. I’ve no doubt about that.”

O’Sullivan revealed that a meeting with Ed Sheeran had led him to consider how snooker had turned from a hobby into something of a mixed blessing over the years.

He explained: “I think certain sports – I met Ed Sheeran the other day, what a lovely guy he was – just chatting to him. He’s friends with Damian [Hirst], I met him through Damian’s associates.

“We were just chatting away, he said, ‘I’m doing a bit of art, I need a hobby. Because music is my first hobby.’

“Snooker used to be a hobby for me, but I found it difficult, the pressures and I suppose it’s different because I’ve got to play top quality opposition.

“If Ed Sheeran had to have a sing-off with somebody as good as him every night, maybe it wouldn’t be a hobby.

“Going to play Mark [Williams], [Mark] Selby, [John] Higgins, [Judd] Trump, and you’re not at your best, it’s not an appetising thought in a way.

“But if I was at an exhibition in Wales and I wasn’t feeling great, playing players who can make 70-80 breaks you think, ‘tonight’s going to be a good night, I might lose the odd frame because they can all play,’ but it’s a different type of pressure.

“It’s hard as you get older, it’s hard for anybody to be at the top of any sport.”

O’Sullivan’s achievements draw attention every year, but he was asked what was it about him that caused such fascination from some of the public.

“I hope it’s just for the way I play snooker,” he said. “If it’s for my personality, I’m a normal guy, I’m an introvert. I think people think I’ll be quite loud, quite brash, but I’m not that sort of person.

“I think you have to be a strong character to get through what I have had to get through off the table, on the table, being in a competitive sport.

“Lewis Hamilton, Tyson Fury, must have a strong character. Lionel Messi must have a strong character.”

Ronnie O’Sullivan has said his aim is to try and find a “turbo button” to perform at a consistently high level.

The world No. 1 has had one of his best seasons in years, with victories at the UK Championship, World Grand Prix, Shanghai Masters, The Masters and World Masters of Snooker.

The desire to succeed is still huge and although he has dismissed the idea of seeking perfection, he wants to perform consistently well.

“That turbo button I want to just find from the start of the match, middle of the match, end of the match,” O’Sullivan said in an interview with Eurosport’s Rachel Casey. “You have one spell where you might not play well, but really I should be able to do that more often than I am. It’s nice to know that it’s in there, and obviously it’s coming out when I need it most.

“Maybe five, six, seven, ten years ago, I was doing that quite a lot during matches.

“I want to get back to that consistency level, and then I’ve got a great chance of winning any tournament I play.”

Steve Peters will be working with O’Sullivan when the World Championship gets underway on Eurosport and discovery+ at the weekend, and the fabled sports psychiatrist is being tasked with finding the key to unlocking consistency.

“I have felt better to be honest in my game,” O’Sullivan said. “I felt like mentally and physically, I’m great, I’ve kept fit, I’ve looked after myself; I’ve paced myself.

“I’d just like to have a bit more consistency. Everyone’s talking about these bursts, but I want them. I just want to produce that for longer periods in the match.

“Otherwise I’m just making hard work of games.”

The 48-year-old is not striving for perfection, with consistency his target.

“ I don’t want perfection,” O’Sullivan said. ”I just want to play alright.

“Not perfect, just to hit the ball solid and then it’s a nice game, it’s an enjoyable game.”

Stream top snooker action, including the World Snooker Championship, live on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com

The 48-year-old is tied on seven world titles with Stephen Hendry as he prepares to make his 32nd appearance in the sport’s showpiece event, and takes on Jackson Page in the first round.

He has enjoyed a stellar season but admitted he needs “a bit of help” and has started working with Nic Barrow, a former professional and founder of ‘The Snooker Gym’.

“I’ve been trying to think how I want the next five to 10 years to be,” O’Sullivan said. “I’ve been working with a coach and we’ve done a lot of testing in some ways, and I’ve realised I don’t know much about snooker.

“I thought I did. I know how to get a ball in a hole, and I know how to compete and win it, and I’ve got an idea of what needs to happen – I know I have to get this bit of wood and this ball and if I do this, that should happen.

“But I haven’t been that efficient in the last few years and I’ve just tried to accept that I needed a bit of help, so I’ve gone back to a coach that worked with my old coach, and I’m going back through the stuff that worked for me.”

O’Sulliivan has amassed a record 41 ranking titles and can become just the fourth player to win snooker’s three Triple Crown events in the same season if he triumphs in the Steel City, with Steve Davis, Hendry and Mark Williams previously achieving the feat.

“I like to win and I’ve got another five to 10 years, and I’ve got to enjoy the work that I’m doing,” he added. “I know I’ve won tournaments but winning and playing to a certain standard don’t always match up.

“I’ve played a lot better and not won anything all season. It doesn’t really make sense but I haven’t really enjoyed it, I’ve just been struggling to get through the ball smoothly.

“Being happy with the game is what it’s all about, or if that’s not the case, I’ve got to get around not playing well and accept it, but I’m not good at accepting it.

“There’s two ways to come at it, from a technical point of view with the help of Steve [Peters, psychiatrist], or if I can’t do that, I’ve got to accept that I am where I am and not let it wind me up. That’s the worst-case scenario.

“There’s another one, saying I’m not bothered, but I’m not quite ready for that.”

The World Snooker Championship begins on Saturday April 20, with all the action from the Crucible live on Eurosport and discovery+.

When Ronnie O’Sullivan begins his quest for an eighth World Championship crown this week he will do so against a player for whom snooker is in the bloodstream.

Blaenau Gwent is a borough in South Wales encompassing towns such as Tredegar, birthplace of six times world champion Ray Reardon, and the village of Cwm, where Mark Williams grew up before going on to win the world title three times.

This is the green, green baize of home. A snooker hotspot formed in the shadow of the now quiet coalfields. For decades, the menfolk of Gwent were miners. Snooker was a post-work pleasure after long days at the coalface.

Reardon himself was buried for three hours during a mine collapse as a young man. Williams was a boy during the strike of 1984, his father out of work. In these defiantly working-class areas, money was tight but the determination to survive was strong.

Evidence of this mindset has been clearly identifiable in the careers of Reardon and Williams and now the lineage is extended by Jackson Page, a 22-year-old from Ebbw Vale who demonstrated considerable poise by making a century in the deciding frame of his final qualifying round match against Noppon Saengkham.

His reward is a meeting with O’Sullivan, but even before the draw was made he was sounding bullish. “Give me anyone, I ain’t bothered. I’m just ready to go,” he said after qualifying. Not cockiness, but confidence. That Reardon/Williams attitude that anything is possible.

Page has played O’Sullivan twice, losing 6-3 in round one of the 2017 UK Championship and 4-1 in the second round of this season’s English Open, but he recently proved he can set aside the stellar reputations of opponents when he beat both John Higgins and Mark Selby during a run to the World Open semi-finals in Yushan, China.

This was by far his best performance in a ranking event since he first joined the World Snooker Tour in 2019, although he was also successful on his Crucible debut two years ago, beating Barry Hawkins 10-7 with centuries in each of the last two frames.

Williams is a regular practice partner – when he can be dragged off the golf course – and mentor figure. He dished out a particularly hard lesson by hammering Page 13-3 in the second round after that Hawkins victory.

There are also echoes of another player, James Cahill. He arrived at the Crucible in 2019 under amateur status and was widely tipped to be crushed by O’Sullivan but stood tall, took the game to him, seemed to enjoy every minute and pulled off a shock 10-8 victory.

Page does not seem the type to be intimidated, although he is aware O’Sullivan can outplay anyone at his best. Their match on Wednesday and Thursday promises to be an eye-catching affair, one of many in an intriguing first-round draw in which the qualifiers feel much closer in standard to the top seeds than in years gone by.

All 32 players in the final stages are ranked inside the world’s top 45. There are no rank outsiders – this year just one debutant, Joe O’Connor, made it through the qualifying melee.

The Welsh are well represented. Keeping up with the Joneses will be a challenge for Zhang Anda, who plays Jak, a quarter-finalist last year, and John Higgins, who has been drawn against Jamie, the player who eliminated Neil Robertson in the qualifiers.

Ryan Day is back for a 15th time while 52-year-old Dominic Dale is the oldest qualifier for 14 years and back at the Crucible for the first time in a decade.

Experience is a theme of the qualifiers. Former champion Stuart Bingham will play Gary Wilson while Stephen Maguire meets Ali Carter, who beat him in the semi-finals in 2012.

Six of the qualifiers are over 40, meaning 15 players in the field have reached this age milestone.

At the other end of the scale, 21-year-old Si Jiahui is the youngest competitor this year, returning to the Crucible after his remarkable run to within two frames of the final 12 months ago.

In between, Si has appeared in the German Masters final. He was 4-0 down to Wu Yize in the final round of qualifying a few days ago but reeled off 10 frames in a row to prevail 10-4.

He faces Williams in what could be the match of the round, although similar billing could be used for Ding Junhui v Jack Lisowski and Judd Trump v Hossein Vafaei.

Lisowski was at his free-flowing best in easing through two rounds of qualifying, and Vafaei impressively recovered from 3-0 down to get the better of Jiang Jun.

He poses a clear threat to Trump, who always seems to start slowly at the World Championship – although one year when he won comfortably in round one was 2022, where he beat Vafaei 10-4.

The opening round feels like the first fence of the Grand National. After all the build-up, it’s suddenly coming into view and there will be prominent fallers. Even the greats feel nerves. Everyone knows whole careers are defined by performances in the World Championship.

When the matches get longer the bigger names are rightly fancied to relax into the championship and play their best snooker, so these first six days are where they may be most vulnerable.

And this year, there is more than enough quality from the qualifiers to cause plenty of upsets.