Ronnie’s not sure if he is best of all time
O’SULLIVAN SAYS BEING AT TOP ISN’T ALL THAT
RONNIE O’SULLIVAN played down his status as the greatest player of all time — and stressed getting to the top is not all it’s cracked up to be.
The Rocket (48) is regarded as the green-baize GOAT by his peers courtesy of his recordsetting career.
He is bidding for a record eighth World Championship, to eclipse Stephen Hendry’s haul of seven, this year in Sheffield.
But it has not always been plain-sailing for the sport’s biggest star.
His dad, Ronnie Snr, was jailed for murder when he was 16 and he spent spells in rehab to combat alcohol and drug addiction.
The age-defying world No.1, who plays talented qualifier Jackson Page today, said: “I don’t really consider myself the greatest of all time.
“I’m one of them, maybe. You’ve got Hendry, Davis, and my hat’s in the ring with them.
“I’ve had a different career to them. I think they just did it over a 10-year period, whereas I’ve sort of gone off track for five or six years then got myself together again and back off track for a few years then got myself back together.
Perform
“I was a bit all over the show at times with stuff going on off the table and that can affect how you perform on the table.
“Hendry and Davis pretty much had everything fitted around them to be focused on snooker and I didn’t have that.
It’s not how it worked out for me. I’ve had to go on longer to get what I’ve got out of the game.”
O’Sullivan’s CV also includes the records for most ranking titles (41), most Triple Crown — worlds, UKs and Masters — majors (23), most maximum 147 breaks (15) and he is the only player to make over 1,000 centuries (1,260).
There would be a perfect symmetry if a 24th major title came on May 6 with eight-eight-eight of the game’s grandest gongs.
But O’Sullivan who is gunning for a third world title in five years, doubled down and insisted: “I don’t regard myself as the greatest.Yes, statistically, I suppose I am but I’m just happy to be playing.
“As a kid I would have been desperate to be up there with those guys.
“But when you get there you see it as a bit of an anti-climax and it’s not as great as you thought it would be.
Benefits
“By then you’re so far in, it’s too late to back out and live it all again. You go ‘I’ve got what I’ve got’ and you take the other benefits of it.
“It’s going to be hard to catch those records now. Whether that makes me the greatest or not, I don’t know.
“Someone’s going to have to do phenomenally well to get my records.
“I know my ranking events is beatable. But the major titles; UKs, Masters and worlds that will be hard to get to.
“I’m pretty cool with what I’ve done, but I’d like to win more though.”