“I’M NOT SURE HOW I WON IT!” Ronnie O’Sullivan wins his eighth Masters championship! The Masters 2024
“I’M NOT SURE HOW I WON IT!” Ronnie O’Sullivan wins his eighth Masters championship! The Masters 2024
Ronnie O’Sullivan, the Masters winner, questions whether his current performance will be sufficient to win at the Crucible.
Ronnie O’Sullivan isn’t convinced if his current form will be sufficient to secure an eighth global title, a record for the modern era.
With a 10-7 victory over Ali Carter on Sunday, the 48-year-old secured his eighth Masters title, capping an eighth UK Championship triumph in December.
With the opportunity to win all three of snooker’s Triple Crown events in the same season for the first time in his career, he will travel to Sheffield in April.
“Titles and numbers have never motivated me,” O’Sullivan said to BBC Sport.
All I want is to have fun and play the game well. It would be an added advantage if I were to purchase a couple titles. I’ll keep trying because I’ve never been able to fully master the game.”
The world number one tied Stephen Hendry’s record of seven world titles at the Crucible in 2022, and following his most recent Masters victory, he will be a strong favorite to surpass that total.
He had already urged his fellow top-16 opponents to “get their acts together” in order to defeat him before his triumph over Carter.
“I usually know in February or March if I have a strong enough game to win the Worlds. Right now, I would probably argue that it’s not.
He is going to take some stopping’
After falling 6-3 behind to Carter in the Masters final, O’Sullivan won seven of the next eight frames to wrap up victory at a raucous Alexandra Palace.
Only three players – Steve Davis, Hendry and Mark Williams – have ever won the UK, Masters and World Championship titles in the same season, with Williams the most recent to do so in 2002-03.
Hendry and another former world champion, John Parrott, believe O’Sullivan has an excellent chance to emulate that feat.
Parrott told BBC Two: “He’s going there [to the World Championship] as the favourite, that’s for certain. It’s a bigger test there, it’s a lot longer and more draining mentally. But if you’ve won it seven times, you can win it again.”
Hendry went on: “Ronney has just pulled away at 7-7 in two consecutive Triple Crown finals.
“It will be difficult to stop him at the World Championship. There aren’t many opponents who could prevent him from winning the Triple Crown [this season], so that’s what I’m searching for.”
O’Sullivan, the 40-time winner of ranking events, said he will participate in the World Grand Prix, which gets underway in Leicester on Monday, and then take a two-month vacation from competition to recover for the remainder of the season.
“I’ll probably just play next week because it’s 32 players, I’ve earned my way to get in that tournament,” he stated. “But for now, I’ll just ignore every other competition. I think I would like a.
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