Ronnie O’Sullivan backed to retire after World Snooker Championship with star fed up
Ronnie O’Sullivan will get the chance to win an eighth World Snooker Championship title later this year.
Snooker legend Ken Doherty has backed Ronnie O’Sullivan to consider retirement if he clinches the eighth World Snooker Championship of his career later this year. The Rocket is in sparkling form but claims to be getting ‘no enjoyment’ from his success of late, which includes what should have been a satisfying win over bitter rival Ali Carter in the Masters final earlier this month.
O’Sullivan beat Luca Brecel to win the Shanghai Masters back in September, kick-starting a sequence of stellar results. The 48-year-old has won two triple crown events in the UK Championship and the Masters, and he has the chance to win all three in a single season for the first time in his career if he seals world glory at the Crucible in May.
His impressive form has been on show at the World Grand Prix in Leicester this week, where he has set up a semi-final against Ding Junhui on Saturday, but O’Sullivan claims that his performances are giving him no satisfaction whatsoever.
After beating Zhou Yuelong in the earlier rounds, he said: “I just have struggles with the game. I can’t accept bad cueing, I can’t accept it. I’d rather cue well and lose than cue awful and win tournaments. I get no satisfaction out of it, I really don’t.”
Former world champion Doherty believes that the Rocket may opt to call it a day if he wins an eighth global title later this year, which would put him alone at the top of the all-time list in the modern era.
“Maybe he’s come to that crossroads in his life where maybe if he wins the eighth World Championship, it might be time for him to say, ‘look, I’ve gone out on the top’,
He could still play exhibitions and still loves playing in China, but it might be the right time if he feels that way. He’s playing the best snooker; he says he doesn’t like beating people who want it more, but on Sunday night in the Masters, Ali Carter wanted that title as much as he did.
“He fought tooth and nail to beat him and was successful in the end. He still has that competitive spirit in the end, even though he says he might not. But when he gets back on that table, he’s a different animal. He still gives a lot of great entertainment and he has been a talisman in snooker.”
