O’Sullivan holds key to snooker’s exciting future

27th Jan 2010

As Mark Selby raised the UK Mas­ters tro­phy aloft last Sun­day, there was a curi­ous, sub­dued atmos­phere lin­ger­ing in the air of the Wem­b­ley Arena.

A 10–9 vic­tory was, prover­bially, snatched from the jaws of defeat yet, lit­er­ally, it was more ele­gant – aimed through the jaws of the six pock­ets of the final’s slick yet feisty table with daz­zling pre­ci­sion and a flow­ing cue action.

Thwart­ing Ron­nie O’Sullivan is no mean feat. There remains lit­tle doubt for this writer that he is the most nat­u­rally tal­ented sports­man in the world cur­rently ply­ing his trade. How­ever, the celes­tial hand which deals out sport­ing genius oft pro­vides this ultra-rare qual­ity at a cost. O’Sullivan is no exception.

The 34-year-old’s career has been tainted by volatil­ity of char­ac­ter, often said to have its roots in the rela­tion­ship he holds with his father, who con­tin­ues to serve a prison sen­tence for mur­der. His 590 cen­tury breaks in com­pe­ti­tion have been accom­pa­nied by far less glo­ri­ous moments, the major­ity away from the table. The rap sheet is long and includes such infringe­ments as the assault of a media offi­cial, pub­lic tirades against play­ing col­leagues, con­ced­ing a UK Cham­pi­onship best-of-17-frame match in its early stages, and repeat­edly threat­en­ing to quit snooker for good.

If a likely future threat proves to be a real one, the game will lose its finest player of all time. O’Sullivan’s rapid break build­ing and intel­li­gence at the table con­tinue to stun those watch­ing. Even his safety play can mes­merise. He switches the cue so nat­u­rally between his right and left hands that John Virgo, the for­mer player turned com­men­ta­tor, admit­ted that it’s unno­tice­able. In the 10th frame of the Mas­ters final, O’Sullivan played his penul­ti­mate shot using the knuckle of the mid­dle pocket to achieve per­fect posi­tion on the black. Bold­ness and nat­ural abil­ity of such pro­por­tion is unpar­al­leled in the sport’s his­tory. Even the wiz­ardry of Alex Hig­gins, in the 70s and 80s, has to be over­looked and cast into O’Sullivan’s shadow.

Stephen Hendry and Steve Davis, who have won 12 World Cham­pi­onships between them, were excep­tional com­peti­tors but O’Sullivan com­mands a bracket of his own, as genii always do. Three World Cham­pi­onships are a mea­gre return for a player with such a gift.

O’Sullivan has, per­haps, been unfor­tu­nate that his unmatched tal­ent is for a sport which is so men­tally demand­ing, and which con­stantly inhibits his instinct for flair and flam­boy­ance. The Midlands-born ‘Rocket’, a nick­name which took on a truly sig­nif­i­cant mean­ing after he recorded the fastest ever 147 dur­ing the 1997 World Cham­pi­onship, dis­dains the sit­ting and wait­ing for extended periods.

O’Sullivan’s desire to play the game accord­ing to his beau­ti­ful, innate inter­pre­ta­tion is sup­pressed by col­leagues whose brain-arm-cue coör­di­na­tion is markedly infe­rior to that of the five-time world num­ber one. And the venues on the World Snooker cir­cuit cre­ate a repres­sive set­ting for a player of O’Sullivan’s nature to per­form in. Seem­ingly caged in at times, when an oppor­tu­nity to pun­ish an oppo­nent presents itself he reg­u­larly unleashes his bril­liance to dev­as­tat­ing and match-winning effect. But occa­sion­ally the frus­tra­tion is too much and ‘The Rocket’s’ short fuse is irre­versibly lit.

In the 19th and final frame of the Mas­ters final, this appeared to be the case. O’Sullivan’s 9–6 lead had dis­in­te­grated and, despite requir­ing just one six-point snooker, on miss­ing a red to the mid­dle pocket, he con­ceded both frame and championship.

John Par­rott was forced to fum­ble his way through the ques­tions of a well-rehearsed post-match inter­view as O’Sullivan unwill­ingly answered with utter enig­matic dis­in­ter­est before he and his cue, the only thing in that arena, and in this world, that truly under­stands the depths of his genius, made a swift exit.

The curi­ous­ness and sub­d­ual that could be felt in the wake of Selby’s nev­er­the­less impres­sive vic­tory were thus Ronnie-induced. The scenes of jubi­la­tion were under­mined by a quite dif­fer­ent mood. O’Sullivan’s state of mind will always be snooker fans’ biggest con­cern. It will also occupy the thoughts of the man who handed over the tro­phy – Barry Hearn.

Hearn is World Snooker’s new chair­man and his appoint­ment in Decem­ber of last year was met with wide­spread approval from both play­ers and pun­dits alike. His desire to ‘freshen the game up’ with shorter for­mats and an increased num­ber of tour­na­ments will form part of a dras­tic remar­ket­ing of the sport under his charge.

The 61-year-old has also openly spo­ken about the impor­tance of hav­ing O’Sullivan at the fore of the rev­o­lu­tion. ‘The Rocket’s’ crowd-drawing speed and aggres­sion will lead snooker’s expan­sion into the rest of Europe. A first-class break-builder of attack­ing men­tal­ity, Selby will be there too.

Such an atti­tude is to be praised. One has the impres­sion that the for­mer big­wigs saw O’Sullivan as a nui­sance, a tem­pera­men­tal and unsta­ble char­ac­ter that at any point could boil over and bring the game into dis­re­spect. His genius was tol­er­ated, not celebrated.

Hearn also chairs the Pro­fes­sional Darts Cor­po­ra­tion (PDC), and mas­ter­minded the suc­cess­ful over­haul­ing of darts in the ‘80s. Unfor­tu­nately the upheaval caused a huge split in opin­ion and the British Darts Organ­i­sa­tion (BDO) con­tin­ues its anti­do­tal cir­cuit against the flow­ing rev­enue streams and end­less pur­suit for increased TV rat­ings of the PDC. Hearn recently asserted that the BDO has stayed sta­tion­ary whilst the PDC has led the way to the 21st cen­tury. This is the blue­print to which he will now sub­ject snooker.

Whilst there are report­edly plans for the cre­ation of a one-frame shoot-out tour­na­ment between the game’s top 64 play­ers, thank­fully, Hearn has reas­sured fans that the World Cham­pi­onship will not receive the glossy treat­ment due to be imple­mented in other exist­ing events. The purist is, quite rightly, not to be alien­ated in snooker’s new dawn.

The man cred­ited with guid­ing boxer Chris Eubank to two world titles, and heav­ily influ­enc­ing Steve Davis’ omi­nous dom­i­na­tion of the Snooker World Cham­pi­onship in the ‘80s, now has his sights set on rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing snooker. ‘The Rocket’ will be Hearn’s front line weapon for this rad­i­cal change. The sport’s increased pop­u­lar­ity will surely fol­low and the planet’s most nat­u­rally tal­ented sports­man will likely excel on his regen­er­ated stage.