Ronnie O’Sullivan, snooker legend, sees income decline and aims for retirement

For Ronnie O’Sullivan, 46, snooker was once “a sexier sport 20 or 25 years ago.” In an interview with Eurosport, the six-time world champion said that if he had a child, he would not let him practice the sport that made his fame.

Acidic comments are not new to English, but they now include recognition of one’s own limits. After 29 years dedicated to professional snooker, he finds himself playing at the tables for a maximum of three more.

“I’m not as good as I was, but I accept that. I’m not one of those deluded people. I’m pretty realistic, and there’s a limit to how much juice you can squeeze out of a lemon,” he said.

The lemon in question, professionally squeezed since the age of 16, paid off. Known as “The Rocket” among his peers for his nimble play, O’Sullivan hit his first hundred points at age 10, a record 147 at age 15, and won his first UK Championship (the traditional UK Championship) at age 17.

He holds the record in streaks worth over one hundred points, with more than 1,100 on his resume. He also has the fastest perfect 147 point game ever recorded in official competitions, in 1997, at 5 minutes and 8 seconds.

Also noteworthy is his ability to make his shots with both hands. The use of this ability came to be considered “disrespectful” when he used his left hand for the first time on the circuit, aged 20, in a victory over Canadian Alain Robidoux.

“I didn’t give him any respect because he didn’t deserve it,” O’Sullivan said, according to British newspaper The Independent. “I’m better left-handed than he is right-handed.”

O Foguete, despite criticism of the sport and other undertakings – it has launched three fiction books about crimes and one about recipes –, remains an ambassador for investment in snooker. Faced with the increase of young Chinese talents in the championships, the six-time champion insisted on the need for England to increase investments in the base so as not to be left behind.

Without sparing his vocal chords in defense of athletes, he also came to criticize the international snooker league in 2010, when businessman and sports promoter Barry Hearn took over as chairman of the regulatory body.

Hearn acquired 51% of the shares in the league’s commercial arm and instituted changes to the sport’s awards. The value paid as a reward for 147 point streaks has dropped, the number of matches that high ranking players should play with lower ranking players has gone up.

After repeated friction, O’Sullivan called for a split in the dart championships regulatory body — a sport that once had, between 1993 and 2020, two parallel leagues — to threaten to lead a similar split in snooker.

At the 2020 World Cup, he criticized the level of athletes and stated that he would need to “lose a leg and an arm” to get out of the top 50. Today he occupies the third position, preceded by Judd Trump and Mark Selby, also British.

Among the Chinese growing in the sport is Zhao Xintong, 24, who entered the top 10 by winning the UK Championship and was even compared to O’Sullivan. China thus took two of the top three titles of the season. Yan Bingtao, 21, triumphed at the Masters, and Englishman Mark Selby, 38, was the Worlds champion.

Between good and bad results, O’Sullivan maintains the irreverent tone. On his way to winning the World Grand Prix this month, he struggled to beat a poorly ranked opponent and offered this explanation: the massage he’d received at the hotel had left him so relaxed that he couldn’t get carried away with the game.

With or without massage, in the final of the tournament, the Englishman beat Australian Neil Robertson in a comeback that was considered by the WPBSA (World Association of Snooker and Billiard Professionals) one of the ten best matches of the year.

But not all of their games are marked by great performances. In one of the UK Championship matches, against Kyren Wilson, he asked the referee for repeated breaks, saying the crowd was distracting him. In the tense atmosphere, there was a request for the removal of a photographer and harsh phrases from Wilson, who criticized the delay in the game.

“I told the referee: we are in no hurry. I am here to play pool and there is no time limit for matches,” he told The Guardian newspaper. “It doesn’t bother me. I play in good places and bad places, that’s what it is. I don’t even care enough to have an opinion. That’s what it is. I just keep eating the smoked salmon and cream cheese.”