Rocket reaches for top
RONNIE O’SULLIVAN is aiming to reach snooker’s summit with UK Championship glory tonight.
The rampant Rocket is chasing a record SEVENTH UK title, as well as the chance to stand alone on 19 Triple Crown wins – one ahead of Scot Stephen Hendry’s 18.
After blasting past first-time semi-finalist Tom Ford 6-1 at York’s Barbican yesterday, O’Sullivan, 43 (below) said: “It would be great to win a seventh title here, it would be special.
“If it doesn’t happen then I’ve always got next year or the year after. I’ve still got plenty of time.
“It would be great to beat Hendry’s Major record. But if I beat that then everyone will be going on about Hendry’s World Championship record so it never ends.
“It’s not my main goal. My main goal is to be in a great match. Snooker will always be the winner. I’m proud that I’m still playing and still competing in big events after all these years.”
O’Sullivan has amazingly lost just one match the last four times he’s entered the event – the 2016 UK Final to world No.1 and long-term rival Mark Selby.
ROCKY FIELDING admits he feels like a lower-league footballer who has been called up to play for England ahead of his New York clash with Saul Alvarez on Saturday.
The Scouser, 31, was an unlikely choice as Canelo’s first opponent after the Mexican superstar put pen to paper on a mouth-watering £280million, 11-fight deal with streaming service DAZN.
But the WBA world super-middleweight belt Fielding won in July is on the line at Madison Square Garden and, with Canelo (right) stepping up to the division for the first time, the Liverpudlian reckons he was just in the right place at the right time.
“I nearly bit back to start with but then I thought better of it,” Fielding said when asked about those who scoffed when the fight was announced.
“It’s like a kid playing for a lower-league football team getting a call off the England manager asking if he wants to play for England at Wembley.
“What’s he going to say, ‘No?’ Eddie Hearn will tell you that every fight he offers me I take. I’ve got to look after my family and I agreed even before I was told the purse.
“Maybe he thinks he can take me on and wants to be able to make history for himself by moving up to fight for a world title and I’m the one who’s available.
“It’s a big opportunity for me.
“At the start of the year I didn’t know where I was going, I was having no dates.
“I was training for six months not knowing what was going on, then I got
Tyron Zeuge and I won the title.
“After that, I heard James DeGale and Chris Eubank’s names being mentioned and when my trainer rang me I thought he wanted me to spar one of them. Instead, he said Canelo wanted to fight.”
It is a huge opportunity and the glamour of headlining in America is not lost on a man who grew up wanting to LOOKING DOWN ON THE REST: Fielding poses at the Empire State Building do just that in either New York or Las Vegas. But his preparation has been anything but glitzy with his two children – Ralphy, 2, and Romy, 12 weeks – keeping him grounded.
Fielding added: “My daughter is 12 weeks old and I’ve been in a training camp for 10 weeks so I haven’t held her properly. “But when I’m slugging it out I just think, ‘Everything is for the kids’. “Every punch I throw now is for their future. When it’s going tough in a session I have a think about why I’m doing it.” There is a sense that, after nearly two decades of boxing Fielding has become an overnight success.
He said: “All the hours and the minutes you’ve done over the years lead up to a fight like this, all the setbacks and the graft.
“But if you want to be the best you have to fight the best – I’m going there to win and I’m confident.”
Alvarez v Fielding, Saturday, Sky Sports Main Event