Yes, I’m from that generation … the ones who were teenagers at the end of the sixties, who grew up with Bob Dylan, with big hopes for changes that didn’t really come the way we hoped for. But I digress before I even started…
But, yes, this post is about “changing” times…
I have the feeling that this 2024 World Championship signals the start of a new era for the sport. In the eleven editions before this one, only once, in 2015, did we have a final that didn’t feature a member of the class of 92 or Mark Selby, and only once, in 2016, did we have a final between two players aged under-35. This year, neither Selby nor any of the Class of 92 reached the one table setup. Ronnie and John Higgins were the “last standing” of that group and they bowed out in the QFs. This time, both finalists are in their early thirties, and, surely, nobody expected Jak Jones to make it that far. The season to come will be interesting. Will we see a clear “change of guard”? I do expect this to happen and it would be good for the future of the sport … and even if I dearly wish for Ronnie to get to 8 World Championships, I’m not harbouring too much hope. He will be 49 in December …
Those are the stats on Ronnie’s career and we, his fans, can’t complain… he’s given us plenty, and will probably give us some more. I will always support him, and I’m grateful for the countless great moments he’s created on the green baize.
There has been a change of mind by Barry Hearn as well regarding the Crucible. Only a couple of years ago he was adamant the the snooker was “there to stay”. No more so as this BBC article clearly shows:
Sheffield to ‘move heaven and earth’ for World Championship
Snooker’s World Championship could leave the theatre that has been its home since 1977
Sam Drury – BBC Sport journalist
7 May 2024
Barry Hearn believes “Sheffield City Council will move heaven and earth” to keep the World Snooker Championship in the city.
The Crucible, which only holds 980 spectators, has held snooker’s biggest event every year since 1977, but the current contract expires in 2027.
Hearn, the president of Matchroom Sport and former chairman of World Snooker Tour (WST), insisted that keeping the tournament in Sheffield is “what we all want”.
“The priority is to stay in the Steel City of Sheffield because it’s been our home for a long, long time,” he told BBC 5 Live Breakfast.
“Great moments. But we have a duty to everybody to listen. We listen to the fans, listen to the local people, we also listen to the players.
“The effect on prize money. We look at the conditions, and say the game has moved on, and deserves better than the current conditions.”
How the Crucible looked during the 2024 World Championship final
While Hearn’s desire to stay in Sheffield is now clear, he anticipates that doing so would require a change of venue.
Matchroom took over the running of WST in 2010, with Hearn at the helm until he stepped down as chairman in April 2021 at the age of 72.
He remains an influential figure in the running of snooker and ideally wants a new facility to be built to house the World Championship.
“I think it’s a new-build within the city. It can’t be an expansion of the Crucible. There isn’t enough space. The building is too small,” Hearn said.
“But I think there are other buildings that could be converted… but I need a venue to stress the importance of the event, the quality of the event.
“You can’t stick it in a leisure centre, and say ‘this is our World Championships’, just for the sake of another 1,000 [or] 1,500 tickets a session.“
Moving away from the Crucible would also be popular with some of the players, who have criticised conditions at the theatre.
“If you walk around the Crucible it smells really bad,” said Iran’s Hossein Vafaei.
“The practice room? Do you see anything special about it? It feels like I’m practising in a garage and that’s not good.”
Saudi Arabia has worked closely with Matchroom Sport to bring a number of high-profile major boxing events to the country. It also staged a first WST tournament in March – the Riyadh Season World Masters of Snooker.
“Should the World Championships stay in little old England? It’s a global sport, should it go round the world?” Hearn added.
“Should it sell out and go to where the biggest money is, as have so many sports? Some that I’ve been involved in.
“That’s not wrong – that’s just the progression of how the world’s changed.
“It’s a balance – but you can’t ignore the money, that would be unrealistic and silly to say we’re ignoring the money.
“But at the same time we have a duty of care to the sport, to make sure the great traditions stay with us as well.”
‘Zero interest in a breakaway tour‘
Hearn, who managed six-time world champion Steve Davis, dismissed the notion of a recently mooted breakaway tour to challenge WST.
“There’s no breakaway tour,” he said. “I don’t know why people talk about this.
“The players have got a bit more freedom now, outside of contract, where there isn’t a World Snooker contract, to have an event themselves.
“There is absolutely zero interest in a breakaway tour from any player.“
Judd Trump is one of a number of high-profile players to have ruled out joining such a tour, which has been likened to golf’s LIV breakaway venture.
The 1997 world champion Ken Doherty is sceptical that a rival series would gain any traction.
“I don’t see how a LIV-style snooker tour can survive and if it does and players want to do that, if that is what they want their legacy to be, good luck to them,” Doherty said.
“There are people throwing money at the top players, but is that the legacy they want? Playing in an exhibition tour rather than something meaningful?
“It is not going to encourage people to get into the game by playing on an exhibition tour just to increase your bank balance.“
There is no breakaway tour, but the newly crowned World Champion, Kyren Wilson, has recently admitted on social media that if he was approached to play in high profile, highly paid, exhibitions he would consider it. And why not? They are self-employed, the players. Legacy doesn’t pay the bills, nor does it put food in the plates of family.
And then, of course, both Paul Collier and Rolf Kalb have announced their retirement. In the case of Paul, he will still work as tournament director, but not as a referee. I’m wishing them both the very best in whatever they do in the future.
And finally … to answer the question asked in comments, yes, Ronnie will do exhibitions in China.
This was posted on Weibo: “During the second half of May, Luoyang, Chengdu, Kunshan et Shanghai will organise four exhibition tournaments, and O’Sullivan will play in all four ! Ding Junhui will feature in Luoyang et Chengdu” (translated automatically and made a bit more readable by me…)
When you look at the stats:we can only be happy and thank Ronnie for all the great moments he has given us in the past…and hopefully a few more in the future. When he retires snooker will never be the same for me anymore. A sport is always bigger than any player,but still…. For me Ronnie is an icon for snooker, what Eddy Merckx was for cycling and Phil Taylor for darts: setting records that never will be broken. Let us hope he will continue to play at the professional tour for a few more years at a level where he can still compete with the best.
why would you doubt Ronnie can win an 8th? did you honestly think Wilson or Jones were that amazing? if this is a changing of the guard I’m a Welshman
Yes Santino, they were amazing. Kyren had a difficult season off the table and had some painful defeats both at the Crucible and at the Masters, Jak was a qualifier and someone who had never competed in such environment (the one table setup at the Crucible). The conditions were extremely tricky, it was extremely cold in the arena, and as Lewis explained that had an impact on how the table and the pockets reacted. . They were not spectacular, but they were amazing.
not true. I was there on Saturday and it wasn’t exctremely cold whatsoever. fact is standard was just poor.
Well maybe they had corrected the situation towards the end of the championship. I can’t tell for sure because I wasn’t there. I was going by a number of comments by players on Barry Pinches facebook. Barry was happy that the pockets were tighter than usual. Those players were saying that it had nothing to do with pockets being tighter but rather with the cushions reaction in the vicinity of the pockets because it was freezing cold in the arena. Also, I’m not sure where you were sat on Saturday but hot air tends to accumulate near the top of the room. When I have been there, there was a very noticeable difference of temperature between the arena floor and the seatings upper in the arena, the latter being much warmer and on occasions frankly too hot.
Perhaps it signals a change of guard, but there’s still no new young player who can set up some kind of ‘dominance’. As well as Kyren Wilson and Jak Jones did, it’s hard to see them being serial winners in the way we have seen with their predecessors. The same goes for Luca Brecel.
I do think this World Championship was impacted by table conditions. We know there have always been issues with air-conditioning in the Crucible, but this year they adopted the policy of maximum power. It was freezing! This made the tables play tight and square which I’m sure derailed some of the top players.
But Kyren Wilson will be a good World Champion, as a strong ambassador. He will play in all the events, and always be happy to do promotional work.
One last thing: no offense but I am still unhappy describing Ronnie’s 7 World Championships as ‘a record’ (or jointly). We can’t just dismiss Joe Davis because ‘it was a long time ago’. If we start doing that then we have to accept that all Ronnie’s records might be similarly airbrushed away by some future generation. Records are records, no fudges.
I don’t feel it was a ‘changing of the guard’ personally. Basically Bingham played out of his skin to beat Ronnie (fair and square) then played like a club player v Jones in the semi. If Bingham played anywhere near how he played v Jones then Ronnie would have cruised into the one-table setup with his B or C game. As it is, Bingham brought his A game and Ronnie looked out of sorts.
He could have played his E game to beat Jak Jones – Stuart Bingham reckoned he gave him about 10 frames with bad mistakes and poor decisions and I’d agree. Jak Jones seems like a lovely fella and it’s great to see someone new but he didn’t have to do a great deal other than pick up the pieces, and even then he often took 2 or 3 bites of the cherry. Lovely lad, happy for him, but was helped a lot by his opponents and I think he’s another Jordan Brown/Jimmy Robertson who has had his moment in the sun and we’ll not see him do much again.
That said, the final would have been no certainty, Kyren Wilson is a very solid matchplayer. But let’s not forget he very nearly absolutely bottled it – Jak Jones was 2x black ball frames away from 15-15 having been 7-0 down. I was quite shocked at how nervous Kyren got towards the end. Yes he was a worthy winner and probably the best over the 2 weeks but I don’t think he’d have beaten Ronnie and I do think Ronnie will be back for more if he wants to be, so it’s not quite a full change of the guard.
To me the strangest one of all was Mark Williams, bearing in mind how good he was in Manchester three weeks ago. His early exit was very perplexing and he had a very kind draw to the quarters.
Well I suppose that only time will tell. To me it felt like a change of guard, but feelings are just … feelings.
Thanks for finding out about Ronnie’s exhibitions in China. It is very much appreciated. Regarding the changing of guard I am not too sure. Whereas the general standard on the tour seems better than ever, the standard of the top players seems to have dropped a little. As Csilla mentioned players in their mid-thirties consider themselves to be still very young with very long careers at the very top ahead of them, but I believe they might be mistaken there. If we look at Marc Selby and Neil Robertson, who are 42 and 40 years of age, we see that their level of play has dropped considerably in the last two seasons and maybe that is not just a temporary dip of form, but the beginning of time taking its toll. Just because Ronnie, Williams and Higgins are still performing at a very high level (some more than others), it doesn’t automatically mean that every player will be able to prolong their career in the same way. These three are just really exceptional players with the talent to find strategies to win games although they might not be as consistently good as in their prime. As a consequence of the standard of the best players having dropped a bit, we have seen other players who have been on tour for a long time winning more without really playing much better (for example Robert Milkins and Gary Wilson). Even Mark Allen, who I have to admit seems mentally stronger, has won a lot more without playing better snooker (according to him he played worse in many matches). So in a funny way I feel that time is on Ronnie’s side at least for the next few years because of his sheer bursts of brilliance, he could still be able to win tournaments without constantly performing well. And in addition to that, he always seems to find new motivation. After his loss to Bingham he still seemed very content to have found something in his cue action that will serve him well in the future. I am really very curious how the next season will unfold. Since the tour calendar has changed and three tournaments Ronnie rates highly are very early in the season (Shanghai Masters in mid-July, Xi’an Grand Prix in mid-August and the Saudi Masters at the beginning of September), I wonder whether his preparation will be different and his exhibition schedule in May is the first sign of it.
If Bingham played anywhere near how he played v Jones then Ronnie would have cruised into the one-table setup with his B or C game
I think he definitely could have won the championship with his C game. But it was not about Bingham, he was distracted by things. To me it felt that overall he played a ” nothing game”, a 136 and then many mistakes, there was no consistency at all. But I agree on that many players seem to play very differently in different rounds at the WC. It really is a strange tournament and this most recent edition was even more so.
And let’s be honest it was even strange enough before it actually began with Neil not qualifying.
It certainly was a strange World Championship, for me especially because none of the so-called favourites reached the one-table setup. As if the players who had good seasons were tired or deflated by this time. The people in the semis had very unremarkable seasons. I think this was Ronnie’s best chance, but not for a second it seemed he was really up to it. (Incidentally I understand it hurts he didn’t make the clean sweep and #8, but it’s no reason for all those utterances we read on social media that he’d rather have won something in China won by Trump, instead of the UK or Masters.)
I don’t know about the change of the guard. People expected it when Ronnie lost to Ding in 2017. When he lost to Ronnie in 2020, Kyren said he wasn’t worried, he was only 28 and commentators said 28 is not that young. 😏 Yes it seems that snooker players in their 30s are regarded to be on the younger side, which wasn’t always the case. We’ll see if they will really forge ahead more, but I also wonder what will become of Selby, Robertson and the new #1, who has been exposed to become world champion for awhile…
The talk about the breakaway tour was disconcerting throughout the championship and apparently it’s still not clear if it’s only a pipedream or not. I understand that legacy doesn’t pay the bills, but while going to some lucrative exhibitions while regularly playing on the normal tour is one thing, totally separating and only playing well paying exos is not going to improve snooker ‘s future. And now that the season seems to be over, let me just say that my biggest disappointment was letting in the Saudi money and everything that came with it. Sorry, but I can’t come to terms with it.
Let’s suppose he is not on tour at or around 60, but let’s suppose he get’s some kind of an “eternal invitational tour card”, then I think he would still be able to qualify at that time. Regarding competing against the seeds, I’m not sure.
I think this was Ronnie’s best chance
I also think that it is very likely that he won’t get a better chance than this year on paper. But we fans don’t think like those players, we don’t play on this level. What they should do, is journalism, what they actually do, is the sport.
I commented earlier that all players had gone out of the tournament which I feel he doesn’t like to play against. Dave Hendon said he was nervous, Ronnie said in an interview that he is the only one who generates pressure, never any news articles. But still it feels strange that he would allow himself to let slip the best chance he arguably had at the Crucible in his whole career, he is just too much of a professional for that. So I think the table played a part as well. Many struggled and he was the last in schedule to play, so maybe this deceives us to think that the pressure culminated when he saw that he was the “last favourite standing”.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
When you look at the stats:we can only be happy and thank Ronnie for all the great moments he has given us in the past…and hopefully a few more in the future. When he retires snooker will never be the same for me anymore. A sport is always bigger than any player,but still…. For me Ronnie is an icon for snooker, what Eddy Merckx was for cycling and Phil Taylor for darts: setting records that never will be broken. Let us hope he will continue to play at the professional tour for a few more years at a level where he can still compete with the best.
why would you doubt Ronnie can win an 8th? did you honestly think Wilson or Jones were that amazing? if this is a changing of the guard I’m a Welshman
Yes Santino, they were amazing. Kyren had a difficult season off the table and had some painful defeats both at the Crucible and at the Masters, Jak was a qualifier and someone who had never competed in such environment (the one table setup at the Crucible). The conditions were extremely tricky, it was extremely cold in the arena, and as Lewis explained that had an impact on how the table and the pockets reacted. . They were not spectacular, but they were amazing.
not true. I was there on Saturday and it wasn’t exctremely cold whatsoever. fact is standard was just poor.
Well maybe they had corrected the situation towards the end of the championship. I can’t tell for sure because I wasn’t there. I was going by a number of comments by players on Barry Pinches facebook. Barry was happy that the pockets were tighter than usual. Those players were saying that it had nothing to do with pockets being tighter but rather with the cushions reaction in the vicinity of the pockets because it was freezing cold in the arena. Also, I’m not sure where you were sat on Saturday but hot air tends to accumulate near the top of the room. When I have been there, there was a very noticeable difference of temperature between the arena floor and the seatings upper in the arena, the latter being much warmer and on occasions frankly too hot.
Perhaps it signals a change of guard, but there’s still no new young player who can set up some kind of ‘dominance’. As well as Kyren Wilson and Jak Jones did, it’s hard to see them being serial winners in the way we have seen with their predecessors. The same goes for Luca Brecel.
I do think this World Championship was impacted by table conditions. We know there have always been issues with air-conditioning in the Crucible, but this year they adopted the policy of maximum power. It was freezing! This made the tables play tight and square which I’m sure derailed some of the top players.
But Kyren Wilson will be a good World Champion, as a strong ambassador. He will play in all the events, and always be happy to do promotional work.
One last thing: no offense but I am still unhappy describing Ronnie’s 7 World Championships as ‘a record’ (or jointly). We can’t just dismiss Joe Davis because ‘it was a long time ago’. If we start doing that then we have to accept that all Ronnie’s records might be similarly airbrushed away by some future generation. Records are records, no fudges.
I don’t feel it was a ‘changing of the guard’ personally. Basically Bingham played out of his skin to beat Ronnie (fair and square) then played like a club player v Jones in the semi. If Bingham played anywhere near how he played v Jones then Ronnie would have cruised into the one-table setup with his B or C game. As it is, Bingham brought his A game and Ronnie looked out of sorts.
He could have played his E game to beat Jak Jones – Stuart Bingham reckoned he gave him about 10 frames with bad mistakes and poor decisions and I’d agree. Jak Jones seems like a lovely fella and it’s great to see someone new but he didn’t have to do a great deal other than pick up the pieces, and even then he often took 2 or 3 bites of the cherry. Lovely lad, happy for him, but was helped a lot by his opponents and I think he’s another Jordan Brown/Jimmy Robertson who has had his moment in the sun and we’ll not see him do much again.
That said, the final would have been no certainty, Kyren Wilson is a very solid matchplayer. But let’s not forget he very nearly absolutely bottled it – Jak Jones was 2x black ball frames away from 15-15 having been 7-0 down. I was quite shocked at how nervous Kyren got towards the end. Yes he was a worthy winner and probably the best over the 2 weeks but I don’t think he’d have beaten Ronnie and I do think Ronnie will be back for more if he wants to be, so it’s not quite a full change of the guard.
To me the strangest one of all was Mark Williams, bearing in mind how good he was in Manchester three weeks ago. His early exit was very perplexing and he had a very kind draw to the quarters.
Well I suppose that only time will tell. To me it felt like a change of guard, but feelings are just … feelings.
Thanks for finding out about Ronnie’s exhibitions in China. It is very much appreciated. Regarding the changing of guard I am not too sure. Whereas the general standard on the tour seems better than ever, the standard of the top players seems to have dropped a little. As Csilla mentioned players in their mid-thirties consider themselves to be still very young with very long careers at the very top ahead of them, but I believe they might be mistaken there. If we look at Marc Selby and Neil Robertson, who are 42 and 40 years of age, we see that their level of play has dropped considerably in the last two seasons and maybe that is not just a temporary dip of form, but the beginning of time taking its toll. Just because Ronnie, Williams and Higgins are still performing at a very high level (some more than others), it doesn’t automatically mean that every player will be able to prolong their career in the same way. These three are just really exceptional players with the talent to find strategies to win games although they might not be as consistently good as in their prime. As a consequence of the standard of the best players having dropped a bit, we have seen other players who have been on tour for a long time winning more without really playing much better (for example Robert Milkins and Gary Wilson). Even Mark Allen, who I have to admit seems mentally stronger, has won a lot more without playing better snooker (according to him he played worse in many matches). So in a funny way I feel that time is on Ronnie’s side at least for the next few years because of his sheer bursts of brilliance, he could still be able to win tournaments without constantly performing well. And in addition to that, he always seems to find new motivation. After his loss to Bingham he still seemed very content to have found something in his cue action that will serve him well in the future. I am really very curious how the next season will unfold. Since the tour calendar has changed and three tournaments Ronnie rates highly are very early in the season (Shanghai Masters in mid-July, Xi’an Grand Prix in mid-August and the Saudi Masters at the beginning of September), I wonder whether his preparation will be different and his exhibition schedule in May is the first sign of it.
I think he definitely could have won the championship with his C game. But it was not about Bingham, he was distracted by things. To me it felt that overall he played a ” nothing game”, a 136 and then many mistakes, there was no consistency at all. But I agree on that many players seem to play very differently in different rounds at the WC. It really is a strange tournament and this most recent edition was even more so.
And let’s be honest it was even strange enough before it actually began with Neil not qualifying.
It certainly was a strange World Championship, for me especially because none of the so-called favourites reached the one-table setup. As if the players who had good seasons were tired or deflated by this time. The people in the semis had very unremarkable seasons. I think this was Ronnie’s best chance, but not for a second it seemed he was really up to it. (Incidentally I understand it hurts he didn’t make the clean sweep and #8, but it’s no reason for all those utterances we read on social media that he’d rather have won something in China won by Trump, instead of the UK or Masters.)
I don’t know about the change of the guard. People expected it when Ronnie lost to Ding in 2017. When he lost to Ronnie in 2020, Kyren said he wasn’t worried, he was only 28 and commentators said 28 is not that young. 😏 Yes it seems that snooker players in their 30s are regarded to be on the younger side, which wasn’t always the case. We’ll see if they will really forge ahead more, but I also wonder what will become of Selby, Robertson and the new #1, who has been exposed to become world champion for awhile…
The talk about the breakaway tour was disconcerting throughout the championship and apparently it’s still not clear if it’s only a pipedream or not. I understand that legacy doesn’t pay the bills, but while going to some lucrative exhibitions while regularly playing on the normal tour is one thing, totally separating and only playing well paying exos is not going to improve snooker ‘s future. And now that the season seems to be over, let me just say that my biggest disappointment was letting in the Saudi money and everything that came with it. Sorry, but I can’t come to terms with it.
Let’s suppose he is not on tour at or around 60, but let’s suppose he get’s some kind of an “eternal invitational tour card”, then I think he would still be able to qualify at that time. Regarding competing against the seeds, I’m not sure.
I also think that it is very likely that he won’t get a better chance than this year on paper. But we fans don’t think like those players, we don’t play on this level. What they should do, is journalism, what they actually do, is the sport.
I commented earlier that all players had gone out of the tournament which I feel he doesn’t like to play against. Dave Hendon said he was nervous, Ronnie said in an interview that he is the only one who generates pressure, never any news articles. But still it feels strange that he would allow himself to let slip the best chance he arguably had at the Crucible in his whole career, he is just too much of a professional for that. So I think the table played a part as well. Many struggled and he was the last in schedule to play, so maybe this deceives us to think that the pressure culminated when he saw that he was the “last favourite standing”.