Rocket could be heading to jungle

RONNIE O’Sullivan celebrated his birthday with a 6-1 win over Michael White at the UK Championship in York before declaring himself ready to tackle the “I’m A Celebrity” jungle next year.

The 42-year-old fivetime world champion is the highest-ranked player left in the tournament, which has seen holder Mark Selby, Judd Trump and Ding Junhui all fail to progress.

Despite his confident form, O’Sullivan, who had opened up a 3-1 interval lead over Welshman White with breaks of 132 and 64 before closing out a comfortable victory, suggested he might not be around to defend the title next year should he go all the way at the Barbican Centre.

Speaking in a postmatch interview, O’Sullivan was asked if he was serious about following the likes of Steve Davis and Jimmy White as a participant on the ITV reality show, even if it meant not being able to play at the 2018 UK Championship.

He said: “I would, a million per cent, I’d do anything now, I would love it.

“I’m up for it. I used to think ‘no, I couldn’t do that, I’ve got to be a pure snooker player,’ but you get to a stage when you think ‘this is painful and that’s all fun, a good laugh’.

“Everything I do away from snooker is great. I want to do that as much as I can, but also obviously want to play a bit of snooker and do myself justice. As long as I am in the top 64, being No 1 — No 64, doesn’t matter any more.”

O’Sullivan (below) added: “Why not? Let’s have a bit of the jungle. They’ll think I’m a gorilla when they look at me and I take my T-shirt off.”