Sport

‘Never count me out’: Ronnie O’Sullivan ready and relaxed for Crucible record tilt

Serial winner will attempt to take title for eight time, topping Stephen Hendry’s haul of seven

'Rocket' Ronnie O'Sullivan is ready to roll at the Crucible this year. File photograph: Getty Images
'Rocket' Ronnie O'Sullivan is ready to roll at the Crucible this year. File photograph: Getty Images
Aaron Bower at the Crucible
Fri Apr 14 2023 - 20:02

We have known for quite some time that Ronnie O’Sullivan is not your typical snooker player. At times he has seemed immune to everything thrown in his path. Yet his admission that he has taken to pilates to help prepare him for the chance to break one of the few snooker records left for him to break emphasised two things.

O’Sullivan does not rehearse quite like any other player. You cannot envisage many of his peers on a pilates mat, after all. And at the age of 47, the stresses and strains which come with being the favourite to win at the Crucible for the eighth time — and beating Stephen Hendry’s modern-era record of seven which he tied last year — are immaterial in comparison with the one thing even he cannot evade: the trials and tribulations of age.

“It gets harder as you get older,” O’Sullivan said before his first match against the Chinese prodigy Pang Junxu on Saturday morning in Sheffield. “It’s hard to mentally keep going. You get tired and it’s just harder. It’s tougher. I’ll always care but what I do is have a very good perspective on life so it’s not everything. “I do a lot more pilates and stuff like that nowadays, just staying in a good place and focusing on being calm about everything. There is no point getting wound up about anything at this stage in my life, you know. I take things in my stride.”

It is exactly that attitude which could make O’Sullivan as big a threat as ever at this year’s tournament. History has taught us that a relaxed, composed O’Sullivan is a dangerous O’Sullivan.

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He says that on the past two occasions he has won here, in 2020 and 2022, it has taken him a fortnight just to feel normal afterwards. “Back in like 2012, I was fresh as a daisy after winning, I could have done it all over again,” he says. But the Rocket insists he is as fresh as he possibly can be as he hopes to usurp Hendry. This will also be his 31st appearance at the tournament, breaking Steve Davis’s tally of 30.

Even now, with the admission he is an “old man”, O’Sullivan is still the sport’s main attraction, as illustrated by the glee on the face of darts player Michael van Gerwen when the two crossed paths at the tournament media day on Friday. A capacity crowd on Saturday morning will further serve that point. But while everyone will be talking about title number eight, O’Sullivan has no desire to be dragged into such conversations.

“I don’t like to put a number on it,” he says. “Why eight? It could be nine, it could be 10 … it’s ridiculous thinking about numbers.”

O’Sullivan is not the only story in town, though. This year’s tournament will go ahead with the recent match-fixing crisis firmly at the forefront of the agenda. The hearing into the 10 Chinese players suspended over allegations of match-fixing offences will take place midway through the tournament. “Chinese snooker is in a strong place still and I think it can get even stronger,” says O’Sullivan. “It’s a shame, but it is what it is.”

If O’Sullivan creates more history on the green baize, he is capable of shifting the sport away from the negative headlines such is his pulling power. He may nearly be 50, but the fire burns as brightly as ever. “I’ve been in a good mental place the whole of my life; I’m a survivor … It’s been proved over the last 30 years so never count me out, even if I am down.”

Surely nobody would be foolish enough to do that.

— Guardian