Rocket will be cueing up for the checkout
RONNIE O’SULLIVAN insists he has nothing left to prove in snooker and is already planning his retirement from the game.
With Judd Trump now ruling the roost, the Rocket expects he’ll quit the sport in the next few years.
After amassing 38 ranking titles thus far, the six-time world champion hopes a few more major titles will cement his legacy as the greatest of all time.
O’Sullivan said: “I don’t have anything to prove.
“I’ve accepted I’ve got another three or four years maximum of playing top level snooker.
“I ’m not saying the younger players are better, because they’re probably not, you’ve still got a lot of 40 to 45-year-olds playing the best snooker.
“It doesn’t become about who’s the best, it becomes about who can outlast each other, who can recover quicker. A 25-year-old can recover quicker than a 45-year-old.
“I don’t want to play much longer than that, so the next three years I just want to enjoy with an eye on playing on a tour that is maybe a bit more suited to how much I want to play.
“I have a lot less to prove, but I’ve always said that fear drove me on to want to play well and to devote myself to snooker.
“When you do that you get such tunnel vision and for the last five years I haven’t had that approach.
“I’ve been much more relaxed, but you get to a point where that intensity isn’t there enough.”
O’Sullivan returns to action at the Masters this month at London’s Ally Pally chasing a record eighth crown.
He said: “I would like to play into my mid-50s, I still think I could make maximums and play to a very high standard.
“But I don’t think I’m going to be able to compete week-in-week-out. If I go deep in a tournament now, then for two or three days I’m knackered.”