Ronnie O’Sullivan: Majors differ, but even with one arm and one leg, I could still be at the top.
It’s hard to decide which is more remarkable. to be the world number one player into this week’s UK Snooker Championship, precisely thirty years after becoming the youngest-ever snooker major victory. Or to know, exactly 48 hours before your 48th birthday, that you remain among the top players in any sport.
Remaining among the top eight? I could easily do that while I slept. Between scanning a snooker world he has mostly dominated for three decades and tending to a slow cooker full of veggies, Ronnie O’Sullivan grinned and said, “I could do it with one arm and one leg.”
But that’s a really impressive thing,” I hazard.
“What is it?” he asks.
To be among the favorites heading into York for a competition you won in 1993. In any sport, I cannot recall a span like that. At all times.”
O’Sullivan responds, “It’s either quite something… or doesn’t say much for the opposition,” before highlighting the skill of some competitors and the distinction between being in the quarter- or semifinals and putting in the necessary emotional “mustard” to win a triple crown tournament. He emphasizes that this requires him to now probe the limits of his mental and physical fortitude.
He says, “I’m not shocked to be ranked #1 in the world. “I would simply stop playing if I felt like I was getting beat up and couldn’t get any better. Not a chance. Even yet, I can still discover methods to compete, so my life is not all that horrible. helps me leave the house. The tournaments where I really delve in will be the ones I pick and choose to play in; the others I’ll just play for enjoyment. I manage to make it function.
Not that any guest would know at first glance that they were in the uncontested snooker king’s house.
No further visual cues about his career are there, except for two cue cases in the room’s corner. It’s a scene of domestic normalcy as his partner, Laila Rouass, stops over to say goodbye before leaving with their dog. “She [the dog] loves Ronnie,” Rouass explains.
What anticipated did you have? A cabinet filled with trophies? An altar? Laughing, O’Sullivan goes on to explain why he would rather not be continuously reminded of a goal that alternates between a day job and a social hobby and an obsession that becomes an unrelenting tormentor.
“The players are sent from pillar to post, in my opinion,” he claims. “Given how I believe players are seen in the sport, I’m not ready to place all of my eggs in that basket.
I threw away all of my awards. Everything is lost. I’ve got to give it everything I’ve got mentally and learn to live without snooker. It is merely present because I desire it. Mate, you don’t want those people watching you because you’re a needy snooker player. As with Braveheart, you are willing to almost sacrifice your life to maintain your independence.
The authorities in the sport at a time when exhibition work has surfaced in China and was recently scheduled during a World Snooker Tour event in Northern Ireland are the “them” to whom O’Sullivan alludes. Gamers that engaged were carefully warned that their participation could result in penalties, bans, or even expulsion.
The 130 players from 20 different countries who make up the WST contend that it is imperative to safeguard the interests of the entire tour.
O’Sullivan feels as though a turning point has been reached and melancholy relates a scene from the movie Senna in which the Brazilian talks about the excitement of “pure racing” when he was a child racing go-karts before the unwelcome politics of Formula One started to creep in.
“For me, those were the best years,” claims O’Sullivan. “When I was younger, I would be shining my shoes, ironing my shirt, and polishing my cue. I’m not even going to wear a nice suit right now as I wasn’t ready to wear nice clothes because [some of] the venues are that awful.
I chose the tattiest blouse, the tattiest pair of pants, and the tattiest pair of shoes. You are being covered in logos on the left, right, and center. Good things eventually crumble. Everything goes into a knapsack, which I empty when I arrive. I simply put it on, all folded up. I could care less. I still seem fine. It is what it is, really.
O’Sullivan still hopes to add ten more years to his extraordinary lifespan, but that will depend on his schedule. He declares, “I’m not just thinking about next week; I’m thinking about ten years.” “I’m not a rodent. I don’t go on the hamster wheel and pedal till my breath runs out and I pass away. They afterwards receive a new hamster.
“I enjoy taking care of myself. It’s likely that [Steve] Davis and [Stephen] Hendry performed frequently when they didn’t want to. ‘You have to do this, you have to do that,’ said their supervisors. That person was my dad; he left, and I was essentially on my own.
It is almost impossible to overstate the paternal influence of Ron Snr.
O’Sullivan’s hero and mentor was convicted of murder in 1992 and Ron Snr’s last words inside the courtroom after receiving a minimum 18-year sentence were simply: “Tell my boy to win.”
His boy managed to do so on multiple occasions, most notably when he used a four-minute break to cap off a memorable 10-6 victory against Hendry in the UK Championship the following year. The trophy was then taken to Gartree Prison.
O’Sullivan had just been 17 at the time. Now that he is 47, I wonder if he would mind seeing that final frame again. If you want, you can turn it on, he offers.
But the more O’Sullivan observes, the more he sees wrong.
But, he adds, “it was getting worse over time.” “Observe that elongated bridge hand. Even though I was getting away with it, unhealthy habits were starting to creep in. You’ll notice that, at 14, my hand is clenched. For the next six or seven years after this event, my game deteriorated. This really brings back the worst memories for me. What was about to happen…”
In a fantastic new video, Ron Sr. and O’Sullivan’s mother, Maria, discuss the impact of the jail sentence publicly for the first time, providing unprecedented documentation of those “worst years.”
Given that Ron Sr. compared his son’s later televised tournament appearances to “like a visit,” it is not shocking that O’Sullivan’s perception of the sport would shift.
“I needed to be successful for different reasons – to try not to make him feel guilty or responsible for me not reaching my potential,” says O’Sullivan, who refers to the years between 17 and 24 as his “trauma years.”
Even though he has now turned his life around and effortlessly shattered every snooker record, he still doesn’t feel totally safe. “I’ve got that in the back of my mind, even though things are alright now and much better,” he says. “I believe that was real—fucking hell. I could go back to that with ease. I still get triggered by it. It’s now, “How can I avoid letting that consume me?” How can I play a game and then simply park it up so that I may go out to dinner? I’m still learning. It was challenging. I might have had a much better relationship with snooker if he [Ron Sr.] had stayed. Perhaps not.
