Stars attend green carpet for Ronnie O’Sullivan documentary
Ronnie O’Sullivan joked that one of his motivations to carry on playing snooker is to spoil the CVs of his rivals on the tour. The 47-year-old reached his ninth UK Championship final of his career with a 6-2 victory over Hossein Vafaei and continues to be the man to beat.
O’Sullivan is often described as the greatest snooker player of all time and despite dropping down the rankings, remains one of the most difficult opponents at tournaments. He started slowly in his first two games at the Barbican in York, but stormed past Vafaei and Robert Milkins to set up a final against either Judd Trump or Ding Junhui on Sunday.
At a time when several of his peers have since quit the professional game, O’Sullivan is still at the top of the game. He along with the class of 1992 with Mark Williams and John Higgins are still competing, as the Rocket jokingly claimed that winning was not his only priority – he wanted to harm the records of the younger generation.
“I’m just hanging around,” O’Sullivan said to the BBC. “I just like to think they won’t have as good as a career, beat Judd here, this one here, this one there. I am just here to spoil their parties and ruin their CVs. I don’t care about winning, making them think ‘I could have had another few if it wasn’t for him’.”
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O’Sullivan holds the record for most ranking titles with 39, but will be curious about Trump who is sat 13 behind him. He is tied with Stephen Hendry with eight World Snooker Championships, the most in the modern era. But Mark Selby at 40 has won four times and O’Sullivan will be looking to keep hold of his records.
The Rocket has recently opened up on potentially retiring from snooker, but hinted that he could try his hand at pool in the future. “I have to be happy,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live. “And if I wasn’t to go and do what I’ve been doing and what I will continue to do, then I wouldn’t play.
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“I look at it and go well, I’ll play here as much as I can but if I’m not able to go and do my own thing then I wouldn’t even play snooker anymore.
“I’d probably have to resort to playing Chinese eight-ball pool, which is not what I really want to do, I still want to play snooker.”
But as long as O’Sullivan is stopping his snooker rivals from climbing the ladder to become the sport’s GOAT then he could stay in the game and prolonge retirement.
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