With just one frame required in the final session to win the World Championship final, Ronnie O’Sullivan’s entrance to Oasis’ ‘Roll N Roll Star’ had the feel of a premature victory lap. Eleven minutes later the match was over and he had secured his sixth world championship.
The choice of song was also very apt in that it perfectly attributes to O’Sullivan’s stature in the world of snooker. He is famously the showman – the enigmatic figure who can keep an audience wrapped around his finger with his mastery.
Quite frankly I’d be pretending if I said I knew a great deal about snooker. I’m a fair-weather fan at best. I have watched and played enough to inform me of the fundamentals, i.e enough to avoid being that person who asks what the referee’s doing putting the balls back on the table. Hardly something to brag about. I couldn’t sit and talk for hours on end about snooker how I could with football or cricket. But that isn’t, and shouldn’t be, a barrier to enjoying just how mesmerising the game can be when played at its best.
I find a lot of what we take out from sport is partisan. We support teams religiously, and devote ourselves to individual athletes who share our nationality. This often makes the highs even higher. A bicycle kick is invariably great, but if scored by your team’s striker to win a game it’s other-worldly.
Conversely, our routine partiality can dampen what we ought to admit are masterpieces. As a Spurs fan I could never fully appreciate an Arsenal goal, no matter how many fancy flicks and tricks are involved in its build-up. In 2016 Carlos Brathwaite hit four sixes in the final over to win the World T20. I couldn’t let myself be too impressed because he’d just done it against England.
Sometimes it’s nice to accept a stroke of genius for what it really is. I’ve found solace watching snooker in the last couple of weeks because I can do just that. There’s no player I care for enough to let shatter my dreams. And in particular I can relax and enjoy Ronnie O’Sullivan waltzing around the table, building breaks with perceived ease.
Watching any of his 147s, or even one of his century breaks (1,061 and counting) is a joy. It’s a combination of several very satisfying things: the swiftness of thought, the rhythm of execution, the fact he’s clearly thinking two or three shots ahead – all of which seem impossibly difficult to achieve (especially if you’ve played snooker) but made to look so simple. Just as you try to predict how he’ll set up his next shot he’s already walked to the other side of the table and played it.
A lot of credit must go to the other finalist, Kyren Wilson, who fought hard not only in this game but throughout the tournament. But the truth is that at 18-8 this was a final dominated by O’Sullivan; very much different to the semi-final with Mark Selby which could easily have gone the other way. Both games however, with the stakes as high as they can get, exhibited some of Roonie’s best snooker.
As it’s his first world title in seven years it may be worth stipulating that this guy is not some unbeatable force of nature. But why would you want any sportsperson to be that way? Even Tiger misses cuts. Serena is no stranger to having her serve broken. In the same way, part of the charm with Ronnie is knowing the scale of his A-game but never being sure if he’ll show up with it.
O’Sullivan’s career has oscillated from the highs of World Championship wins and maximum breaks to the depths of battling clinical depression and taking time away from the sport. He has also received criticism over the years for his attitude and playing style – the most recent of which came from his semi-final opponent Selby who accused him of ‘disrespectful’ play. This was a few days after Ronnie berated the standard of young players emerging in professional snooker, claiming he’d “have to lose an arm and a leg to fall out the world top 50”. He certainly doesn’t mince his words.
Like his equivalents in other sports, there is a lot of rough to take with the smooth. Snooker may lack the grandeur of basketball, the tradition of golf or the big stadium crowds of football. But O’Sullivan is to snooker what Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Diego Maradona have been to their respective sports. Supremely gifted, if perhaps flawed heroes, the like of whom you’ll only witness once in a generation. They have – he has – the power to draw people into a sport that was once alien.
It’s unclear if O’Sullivan, who has formerly expressed an intention to leave the sport, will continue to play at the top level for much longer. What’s obvious is that he will leave a huge hole once he does retire. For now, on the back of yet another world title, I advise against taking his gift for granted.
Chris Perrin 