There is no one that embodies their sport like ‘The Rocket’ does in snooker; without him, the game would be far inferior.
Following fresh remarks by Ronnie O’Sullivan disparaging the game that has shaped his career, former Masters winner Mark Allen this month encapsulated the opinions of a lot of snooker fans: Sometimes you would want to ask someone to please be silent for a moment. Allow snooker to speak for itself. That, however, is only a portion of the Ronnie O’Sullivan presentation.
For all that snooker has shaped O’Sullivan into the man he is, snooker has become what it is today thanks to Ronnie, a member of that uncommon breed of public characters who have become so well-known that people only know them by their first name.
O’Sullivan is irreverent for a variety of reasons, including his regular (some could say tedious) criticisms of the sport, the two contentious hand signals he was accused of making during this World Championship, pulling out a cigarette lighter and burning his cue tip during the final at the Crucible. I don’t mean any offense to others who have tried and failed to defeat him in the last two weeks when I refer to him as snooker’s main draw for spectators.
His almost unrivaled brilliance is demonstrated by his 18–13 triumph over Judd Trump on Monday night, which officially places him alongside Stephen Hendry as the only players to win seven global titles. But O’Sullivan is more than simply a statistic.
After over 50 years of watching snooker, John Virgo, who has seen more snooker than anybody, told Telegraph Sport, “I thought no one would excite me playing the game like he does, and then we got Ronnie.”
