Ronnie O'Sullivan reached the final of the World Open over the weekend, but lost the World Open final to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh with a score of 10-7. O'Sullivan believes he will likely play in the World Championship now. During the tournament, O'Sullivan made a break of 153 in the quarter-finals of the World Open, which he described as the highest in snooker history.
However, he has set a deadline of 2028 to resolve technical problems with his game, and will walk away from snooker if he cannot rediscover his natural playing style by 2028. ' The snooker legend's performance at the World Open showcased both his enduring skill and ongoing struggles, with the historic 153 break highlighting his technical prowess despite recent challenges. His decision to set a 2028 deadline reflects a determined effort to overcome these issues, but also underscores the urgency he feels in his career.
I can only take one day, one week at a time. I can’t look any further than a week at the moment, with my career.
O'Sullivan's mental health concerns have been a significant factor, with anxiety nearly leading him to skip the upcoming World Championship, a tournament where he has historically excelled. The 'last throw of the dice' mentality suggests that O'Sullivan views the next few years as critical for his legacy in the sport, as he aims to reclaim his natural form and confidence before potentially retiring.
I’ve not been playing for a reason, just because I haven’t had a game good enough to compete, so I’ve been trying to find that on the practice table and hopefully bring it to the match table.
I’ve had quite a good year, really. I felt like I played really quite good at the start of the season, better than I was, and then I had a dip for a couple of months. January and February wasn’t good and I thought: 'Here we go', but I’ve managed to pull it back a little bit.
We’ll just see how it goes. I wasn’t even going to play in the World Championship 10 days ago because I was too scared. I felt like I would embarrass myself.
But now I feel I probably will go, because I feel like I might pot a few balls. It’s not great, I’m not in a great, great place with it, but I’m better than I was maybe two weeks ago.
It’s been a positive week. Thepchaiya was unbelievable, deserves his victory, he played much better than me today. I watched his game yesterday in the semi-finals, he was strong. I couldn’t go with that, he was far too good for me.
My game’s not good enough to go to that level, simple as that. It used to be. Everyone’s played okay against me this week, so my game is good enough to beat players playing okay.
I just can’t get to the potting angle of certain shots, I can play maybe 60-70 per cent of shots comfortably, but there’s other shots I just don’t have in my locker.
When someone plays like that, I’m just one-dimensional, really. It limits what I can do and the amount of pressure I can put on my opponent.