Ronnie beat Lukas Kleckers by 4-0 in the first round of the 2022 Northern Ireland Open.

These are the scores:

Ronnie didn’t play particularly well but Lukas wasn’t able to take his chances. In the balls, Ronnie was reliable and throughout the match his attitude was good. He didn’t go for anything outlandish. His long potting though was pretty awful.

Here is WST report about this match:

Ronnie O’Sullivan is also through. He made light work of Lukas Kleckers in a 4-0 whitewash. O’Sullivan took the lead in the match with a break of 66 before edging the second frame 78-46. The German struggled to get going in the contest and the Rocket soon made it 3-0 with a break of 77. Kleckers hopes of securing his opening frame of the match were extinguished following a safety exchange on the brown. Trailing 56-53, he left the object ball over the top right pocket, allowing O’Sullivan to clear up the final four colours and see out a comfortable 4-0 win.

“He (Kleckers) wasn’t at the races and I just had to pot a few balls. I didn’t do anything special,” said O’Sullivan.

“I haven’t even picked up my cue since the Hong Kong Masters! I came home and had a nice weekend with the dogs. They’re the best thing. They’ve restored my faith in life and they give me so much love.”

And two images they shared on twitter:

And more quotes reported by RTÉ

“I don’t have a schedule, I just enter everything,” he tells RTÉ Sport.

“The trick is to lose… if you don’t want to be somewhere, then you’re better off getting beat, getting home and having a few days off, and waiting to see how you feel the next week.

“Before I used to pick and choose, and I was playing better then, and I was able to do that and get away with it. Now I just enter everything, and then at some point I’ll feel good and might win it.

“If I don’t feel good, at least play a couple of matches, get out of the house for a few days, and then get back home.

“Nothing really matters – wins, losses – eventually something will happen. That’s the law of averages.“

O’Sullivan adds that he’s looking forward to spending some time in Belfast, where he plans to run, and continue to do work with Eurosport even while he’s still involved in the tournament.

“It’s the most important thing I do [jogging] – that and the dog,” the 46-year-old says.

“I want my life to be as easy and comfortable as it can possibly be, and snooker is probably the hardest thing that I have to do. I have to get my head around it and be professional.

“You’ve got to switch on the mind. Everything else I want it to come easy, and it does. So I don’t mind having to put a bit of effort in for something, so the snooker is tough.

“Any bit of table time I get at the moment is good. I haven’t played much for five months. I played for two or three weeks before Hong Kong, but I’m still quite rusty.

“I don’t feel like I know my way around the table just yet, but that will come over a bit of time. I’ve a lot of projects on at the moment; I can’t do everything so snooker is having to take a bit of a backseat.

“I’m just trying to fit it all in without driving myself crazy.“