Ronnie turns 48 today … where have all those years gone??? I’m older than his mother, he’s not much older than my son … What happened there??? For once he will not be in York, bringing cakes to the media gang. Hopefully he has the best of celebrations with his loved ones. 🥂🎂🫖💝
RONNIE O’SULLIVAN RAISED THE BAR AND SHOWED HE IS ‘SNOOKER’S GREATEST ASSET’ WITH TRIUMPH AT UK CHAMPIONSHIP
BY DAVE HENDON
Eurosport’s Dave Hendon breaks down how Ronnie O’Sullivan showed the world that he is “snooker’s greatest asset”. The world No. 1 made history by becoming the youngest and oldest winner of the UK Championship after he clinched a record-extending eighth title on Sunday. O’Sullivan’s classy performance was too much for Ding Junhui and he lifted the title 30 years after he first won it aged 17.
How many more times can the bar be raised?
Even by Ronnie O’Sullivan’s extraordinary standards, his dash for the winning line to land a record-extending eighth UK Championship title last night was something special.
The crowd inside the Barbican Centre were in awe as O’Sullivan crunched in long pots, exercised perfect positional control and sank ball after ball to move from 7-7 with Ding Junhui to run out a 10-7 winner. The final three frames lasted 32 minutes.
In the blink of an eye, 30 years fell away. We were back at Preston Guild Hall watching the 17 year-old O’Sullivan announce his arrival on the big stage by stunning Stephen Hendry to become the youngest UK champion in 1993.
Now, on the eve of his 48th birthday, he is the oldest. When the audience in York rose to acclaim him, they did so recognising they had witnessed something close to magic, a mercurial burst of inspiration only possible from sport’s true greats.
It means a 40th ranking title, four more than Hendry in second place. O’Sullivan’s eighth UK Championship triumph is one of 22 ‘Triple Crown’ titles to his name. He extends his lead at the head of the rankings. In every possible measure, he is the greatest.
Standing next to him at the trophy celebration was Steve Dawson, the chairman of World Snooker Tour, whose organisation can take credit for an excellent event, well promoted, with record ticket sales and an enjoyable vibe throughout.
But Dawson must surely also realise that WST need to mend relations with O’Sullivan, who is the subject of disciplinary action pertaining to comments he made about exhibition engagements in China and player freedom.
Whoever is right or wrong in that debate, the facts are plain: O’Sullivan is snooker’s greatest asset. We need him playing as much as possible. Off table rows are distractions that we could all do without and it’s doubtful most ordinary fans care about those issues.
What they want is to watch Ronnie play snooker. WST should do everything to ensure he feels able to continue doing that in established tournaments which have meaning, rather than in exhibitions which have little.
O’Sullivan is hardly a blameless character but has more than earned the right to have his say about the sport, how it is run and what he wants to prioritise going forward.
He has become a huge draw in Asia, where promoters are willing to pay for his presence in exhibitions and tournaments. Anyone watching last night’s final will consider this money well spent.
If the weekly grind of tournament life is less to his liking these days, then this is hardly surprising, but it’s clear he still gets himself up for the big occasions. More importantly, he is still capable of thriving in such occasions.
As for O’Sullivan’s week in York, he was not at his brilliant best all through the event, but does not need to be when opponents freeze at the prospect of beating him.
Robert Milkins had three chances to do so in their decider. Zhou Yuelong had him on the ropes at 5-4 but made little impact on the last two frames. Hossein Vafaei had played the snooker of the week going into the semi-finals but wilted in the presence of The Rocket.
This is the aura of greatness which surrounds O’Sullivan. It gives him almost superhuman strength while sending the legs of rivals to jelly. Even when things are going badly wrong, the very fact of who he is, what he has done and what he is capable of makes the difference.
To Ding’s credit, he fought hard and put pressure on. At 7-7, the final was firmly in the balance. He did not do much – if anything – wrong in the closing three frames, which went by in a blur of brilliance.
Ding had to qualify for York but is now back where he belongs, as a member of the top 16 and qualified for the key events coming up in early 2024.
So what is next in the compelling drama that is Ronnie O’Sullivan’s career?
He hasn’t entered this week’s Shoot Out and will possibly skip the Scottish Open to recharge the batteries. He has been invited to a lucrative exhibition event in Macau over Christmas, then it’ll be back for the Masters in January he will face Ding in the first round.
Soon, the drumbeat towards the Crucible, where he will be attempting to win a record eighth world title, will begin.
His great friend and fellow Eurosport pundit, Jimmy White, believes he can get to 10 victories in each triple crown event. Such numbers seem fanciful on paper, but performances like those against Ding make you think again.
It seems every apparent last hurrah is succeeded by another. This remarkable, unique sporting figure just keeps amazing us.
How many more times can the bar be raised? Over to you, Ronnie.
As ever, David tries to express a balanced opinion and present both sides of the story in a fair way. Thank you Dave for that.
The real question for me is this one: why is WST so reliant on the “older” “big names”? Why is there such a culture of nostalgia in snooker? Why do most of their reports or announcements focus on the older players? Why do we still hear about the 85 final all the time? Or about Alex Higgins? Celebrating history is fine, good even, but promotion has to be about the present, the current players, and about the future, the up and coming ones. You will tell me that WST are about “recognisable” names when doing promotion. I get that but those “recognisable” figures will not be around forever and they were unknown rookies when they started. WST need to create “new” recognisable figures and that work has to start when those players are young and not well known yet.
You will tell me “right but how?”. Here are some ideas:
Scrap the qualifiers in flat draw events. Bring everyone at the venue, yes, even in China or Germany.
Have a stream of all tables. The cameras are already there.
Have more events with a tiered format and the type of coverage we get for the World and the UK. Not focusing on one table but hoovering through interesting phases on all tables.
Interview more players “live” and allow them to be themselves. Don’t pander the politically correct brigade. Alex Higgins, Jimmy White, Ronnie … they don’t fit in that mould and that’s why they are talked about and remembered. Times have changed? Maybe, but fundamentally human nature hasn’t.
Adopt a rating system instead of the stupid money list. It will bring a much needed flexibility. For instance, it would allow to organise a “rookies” cup at the start of each season – as Lewis suggested – without distorting the “rankings”. Do it with maximum exposure, in a nice venue, and free admission. Make it something festive and fun. Build the rookies profiles up. Yes. it would cost; it’s called investing in the future.
Ok guys… please come up with your “innovative proposals” … what would YOU want to see?
I’m not a fan of the Shoot-out being ranking in the current system, I wouldn’t object to it if we had a rating system though.It is what it is and I will try to enjoy it.
Records:
Ronnie is the first player in the modern era, who achieved at least 8 trophies one of the triple crown tournaments. (Yet. One. : ))
…
Reform:
First of all: a healthy shot-clock, see: ex PL, tennis (Or maybe like chess? : ))
Of course with other relatid refinings,…all these to do just for a flowing, dynamicer, clever game. (Not table-tennis tempo, but after all…)
…
Ronnie ConteO’Sullivan: the man is too good, too Go(o)d,…It is looks already doubtful to me!
/; ))
…
M.H.R.!
Happy birthday champ! 🙂
1.Bring everyone at the venue, yes, even in China or Germany->
The tour should find a method paying the travel fees. (even the prize money has to go down.) Not every player can “abuse” the company to evade taxes, especially players not in UK.
If Saudi is really that generous, it should also pay air tickets and its accommodations. (If it get WC ,though it is somewhat a crazy idea.)
2. stupid money list.
Yes. all 128 tour player matches should provide same points, or approximately same points …
(even the difference is reduced to 1.5~1.66times for L64, it just sounds strange.)
(except shoot out, maybe 1/2)
Hi, I don’t have innovative ideas, but some remarks and questions maybe.
This complaint about what you call nostalgia. FWIW I would certainly prefer to see instead of the usual “black ball” what I call the “pink ball”, i.e. Ronnie’s crazy hitting of the snooker in the 2020 World Championship semifinal and the next glorious 3 frames, but I wonder if it is WST”s or BBC’s nostalgia and maybe it is BBC that insists on pulling this black ball and Alex Higgins out of the box and not WST. I don’t know, just ask.
I know it is a recurring issue which players are or are not interviewed, but it is a fact that there is no point in interviewing those whose command of English is not up to the task. Maybe such people could be interviewed in their native language and the interview subtitled or dubbed. (Which means not through a back and forth translation during the interview, it makes it a lot less natural.)
(Btw it was an interesting attempt by WST to try to bring some players close: that was a very nice piece on Yan Bingtao. Frankly, I would have never become a fan of his game, just not what I enjoy watching, but seeing the guy’s cats warmed me up to him. Unfortunately everything went soon wrong afterwards, leaving me wondering till today what happened to the cats. But it was an interesting feature anyway.
I thought Eurosport streams all tables now. I got upset when during the British Open in the UK one was reduced to ITV, which only broadcast the TV table and Eurosport could not be seen, even on computer.
Certainly at least similar tournaments that require the same effort should goive the same number of points regardless of prize money.
They have a Chinese press officer in Tai Chengzhe and he does interview those players, but their quotes are rarely published by WST. Tai is perfectly fluent in English. Victoria Shi can help as well and she was a professional journalist. All young players from mainland Europe speak English to a very good level. There are no excuses. That said, even if some players aren’t very fluent, they deserve to be interviewed. If they make a few language mistakes, is that a capital sin?
Yeah, I know the level of English in mainland Europe is quite good. And yes, if there are interviews the quotes should be used. And I don’t mean that language mistakes are capital sins, rather that there are players who might have something interesting to say, but cannot, because they don’t have the necessary level of language. Nobody will mind if the preposition is not the correct, or the 3rd person singular is not accompanied with an ‘s’ at he end of the verb, but there must be an acceptable vocabulary present, or a native interviewer. Because the “yeah, I tried my best, hard game, good to win” kind of answers will not interest anyone and won’t show the personality of the player.
Yes, rather predictably the BBC spent their mid-session interval on a retrospective of the 1983 UK Championship final. This was shortly before I abandoned Alex Higgins, and with it, abandoned ‘fanboyism’ of any kind (around the age of 12).
As for interviews with foreign players, I am not calling for in-depth analysis from them. Just a brief few words of thanks, and congratulations from the interviewer. We just need to see them smile. Over time, maybe the languange skills improve with practice. But avoiding interviews altogether is discriminatory, deprives them of a voice, and makes them feel like outsiders. Bai Yulu’s interview after her IBSF win was absolutely fine. I do think British audiences should try to be a little less intolerant with subtitles or translators, when necessary.
As for Yan Bingtao, you may know he has just got married for the second time, to a Vietnamese model. The cats stayed with Ada.
But during the tournaments in Wuhan and Tianjin there were many interviews in Chinese on Migu, some appeared subtitiled by WST on Twitter. They were always extremely interesting, much more than the usual platitudes with the usual players, some of whom can be quite terse or even nasty.
Perhaps if you watch the end of the 2020 semi-final again, you will see that Mark Selby might have won the final frame, but couldn’t quite get on the last red. Of course, Ronnie was the better player and deserved to win, but he wasn’t as “unbeatable” as is often stated. Please don’t turn Ronnie into a myth (like Alex Higgins). Ronnie’s achievements are considerable, but they are real.
Absolutely Lewis. The personality of the player also plays a role. I remember the very young Ding around 2007/2008. He was very shy, almost petrified at the prospect of making mistakes. He needed a bit of time, but he learned. Xiao Guodong on the other hand tried to communicate and “blend in” almost as soon as he came to the UK.
Yes, I read Yan Bingtao got married and happy to hear the cats are with his ex-wife.
Oh, no question Selby could have won the decider and I was not a happy camper when Ronnie missed matchball red and Selby looked like being able to clear up. I did celebrate when he did not get on that last red and Ronnie had a second lease on life in that frame and match. But it is a fun watch for me, although it is true that Selby-fans may not be too keen on revisiting that moment. 🙂
I think people should make an effort to be OK with subtitles, because I do believe it is interesting to know the personality of the people and give them some individuality in public. Most would like to be able to individualize them and not only pay attention to technical skills.
Probably they enjoyed Steve Davies was there to comment/reflect on that match against Alex Higgins. 😏🤔
It was a bit bizarre that they had the Masters draw with an “either/or” despite the 16 qualifiers being known. It looks shoddy. Nevertheless, we have the oldest Masters ever, with average age just over 40 for the first time. Zhang Anda (32) is the only new player, and the only player under 30 is Luca Brecel (28). But I’m sure it will be a great tournament, and most-likely sold-out for all sessions.
Dave Hendon’s article really hits home, especially his observation of the relationship between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Steve Dawson. The result was great for Ronnie, probably good for snooker, and hopefully will make WST (along with WPBSA) realise that trying to control what players say and what they do isn’t going to work very well.
/dnl.eurosport.com/sd/img/placeholder/eurosport_logo_1x1.png){kind=logo}
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Records:
Ronnie is the first player in the modern era, who achieved at least 8 trophies one of the triple crown tournaments. (Yet. One. : ))
…
Reform:
First of all: a healthy shot-clock, see: ex PL, tennis (Or maybe like chess? : ))
Of course with other relatid refinings,…all these to do just for a flowing, dynamicer, clever game. (Not table-tennis tempo, but after all…)
…
Ronnie ConteO’Sullivan: the man is too good, too Go(o)d,…It is looks already doubtful to me!
/; ))
…
M.H.R.!
Happy birthday champ! 🙂
1.Bring everyone at the venue, yes, even in China or Germany->
The tour should find a method paying the travel fees. (even the prize money has to go down.) Not every player can “abuse” the company to evade taxes, especially players not in UK.
If Saudi is really that generous, it should also pay air tickets and its accommodations. (If it get WC ,though it is somewhat a crazy idea.)
2. stupid money list.
Yes. all 128 tour player matches should provide same points, or approximately same points …
(even the difference is reduced to 1.5~1.66times for L64, it just sounds strange.)
(except shoot out, maybe 1/2)
Hi, I don’t have innovative ideas, but some remarks and questions maybe.
This complaint about what you call nostalgia. FWIW I would certainly prefer to see instead of the usual “black ball” what I call the “pink ball”, i.e. Ronnie’s crazy hitting of the snooker in the 2020 World Championship semifinal and the next glorious 3 frames, but I wonder if it is WST”s or BBC’s nostalgia and maybe it is BBC that insists on pulling this black ball and Alex Higgins out of the box and not WST. I don’t know, just ask.
I know it is a recurring issue which players are or are not interviewed, but it is a fact that there is no point in interviewing those whose command of English is not up to the task. Maybe such people could be interviewed in their native language and the interview subtitled or dubbed. (Which means not through a back and forth translation during the interview, it makes it a lot less natural.)
(Btw it was an interesting attempt by WST to try to bring some players close: that was a very nice piece on Yan Bingtao. Frankly, I would have never become a fan of his game, just not what I enjoy watching, but seeing the guy’s cats warmed me up to him. Unfortunately everything went soon wrong afterwards, leaving me wondering till today what happened to the cats. But it was an interesting feature anyway.
I thought Eurosport streams all tables now. I got upset when during the British Open in the UK one was reduced to ITV, which only broadcast the TV table and Eurosport could not be seen, even on computer.
Certainly at least similar tournaments that require the same effort should goive the same number of points regardless of prize money.
They have a Chinese press officer in Tai Chengzhe and he does interview those players, but their quotes are rarely published by WST. Tai is perfectly fluent in English. Victoria Shi can help as well and she was a professional journalist. All young players from mainland Europe speak English to a very good level. There are no excuses. That said, even if some players aren’t very fluent, they deserve to be interviewed. If they make a few language mistakes, is that a capital sin?
Yeah, I know the level of English in mainland Europe is quite good. And yes, if there are interviews the quotes should be used. And I don’t mean that language mistakes are capital sins, rather that there are players who might have something interesting to say, but cannot, because they don’t have the necessary level of language. Nobody will mind if the preposition is not the correct, or the 3rd person singular is not accompanied with an ‘s’ at he end of the verb, but there must be an acceptable vocabulary present, or a native interviewer. Because the “yeah, I tried my best, hard game, good to win” kind of answers will not interest anyone and won’t show the personality of the player.
Yes, rather predictably the BBC spent their mid-session interval on a retrospective of the 1983 UK Championship final. This was shortly before I abandoned Alex Higgins, and with it, abandoned ‘fanboyism’ of any kind (around the age of 12).
As for interviews with foreign players, I am not calling for in-depth analysis from them. Just a brief few words of thanks, and congratulations from the interviewer. We just need to see them smile. Over time, maybe the languange skills improve with practice. But avoiding interviews altogether is discriminatory, deprives them of a voice, and makes them feel like outsiders. Bai Yulu’s interview after her IBSF win was absolutely fine. I do think British audiences should try to be a little less intolerant with subtitles or translators, when necessary.
As for Yan Bingtao, you may know he has just got married for the second time, to a Vietnamese model. The cats stayed with Ada.
But during the tournaments in Wuhan and Tianjin there were many interviews in Chinese on Migu, some appeared subtitiled by WST on Twitter. They were always extremely interesting, much more than the usual platitudes with the usual players, some of whom can be quite terse or even nasty.
Perhaps if you watch the end of the 2020 semi-final again, you will see that Mark Selby might have won the final frame, but couldn’t quite get on the last red. Of course, Ronnie was the better player and deserved to win, but he wasn’t as “unbeatable” as is often stated. Please don’t turn Ronnie into a myth (like Alex Higgins). Ronnie’s achievements are considerable, but they are real.
Absolutely Lewis. The personality of the player also plays a role. I remember the very young Ding around 2007/2008. He was very shy, almost petrified at the prospect of making mistakes. He needed a bit of time, but he learned. Xiao Guodong on the other hand tried to communicate and “blend in” almost as soon as he came to the UK.
Yes, I read Yan Bingtao got married and happy to hear the cats are with his ex-wife.
Oh, no question Selby could have won the decider and I was not a happy camper when Ronnie missed matchball red and Selby looked like being able to clear up. I did celebrate when he did not get on that last red and Ronnie had a second lease on life in that frame and match. But it is a fun watch for me, although it is true that Selby-fans may not be too keen on revisiting that moment. 🙂
I think people should make an effort to be OK with subtitles, because I do believe it is interesting to know the personality of the people and give them some individuality in public. Most would like to be able to individualize them and not only pay attention to technical skills.
Probably they enjoyed Steve Davies was there to comment/reflect on that match against Alex Higgins. 😏🤔
It was a bit bizarre that they had the Masters draw with an “either/or” despite the 16 qualifiers being known. It looks shoddy. Nevertheless, we have the oldest Masters ever, with average age just over 40 for the first time. Zhang Anda (32) is the only new player, and the only player under 30 is Luca Brecel (28). But I’m sure it will be a great tournament, and most-likely sold-out for all sessions.
Dave Hendon’s article really hits home, especially his observation of the relationship between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Steve Dawson. The result was great for Ronnie, probably good for snooker, and hopefully will make WST (along with WPBSA) realise that trying to control what players say and what they do isn’t going to work very well.
Happy birthday, Ronnie! Have a great one!!🥂