Majestic O’sullivan now equal to Nadal
By winning record-equalling seventh World Championship, his 21st major, colourful Briton has joined pantheon of greats
It is just over five years since Telegraph Sport launched its poll in search of the greatest British sportsperson. Five snooker players made the top 100, starting with Joe Davis in 98th place, and peaking with the seven-time Crucible king, Stephen Hendry, in 31st.
Ronnie O’sullivan was 63rd, just below 1976 Formula One champion James Hunt, and, at the age of 41, could hardly have been expected to surge much further up that list. Hendry and Steve Davis, after all, had won the last of their seven and six world titles at the respective ages of 30 and 31.
And yet on marches the remarkable O’sullivan. He became the youngest winner of a “triple crown” tournament when he won the UK Championship in 1993 and, almost three decades later, is also the oldest world champion in snooker history.
O’sullivan has won a further two world titles since the Telegraph’s 2016 poll, plus another three “triple crown” titles to move beyond Hendry, a winner of 18 “majors”, on that metric as well.
Monday was O’sullivan’s 21st victory in snooker’s big three tournaments – the World Championship, the UK Championship and the Masters – and he now stands equal with Rafael Nadal’s tally of grand slam tennis victories, and three clear of Jack Nicklaus in golf.
O’sullivan cites people such as Nadal, Roger Federer, Lionel Messi, Serena Williams and Tiger Woods as his heroes, and it is hard now to dispute that he belongs in such illustrious company. As he pointed out, he also has one less “major” to go at each year than any tennis player or golfer.
The days of snooker being a parochial British sport have long gone and, after he had defeated Judd
Trump 18-13 on Monday, one of the first questions was about when he would next be playing in Asia, where his popularity is huge.
Like the absolute greats of sport, the case for O’sullivan also stretches beyond the titles. He would surely have won at least another 10 majors had he met psychiatrist Steve Peters in 1993 rather than 2011, but the way he has since conquered his “demons” has been inspiring.
And then there is the Federerstyle flair with which he plays, allied to a John Mcenroe streak of rebelliousness. As Barry Hearn, World Snooker’s president, points out, you never quite know what
O’sullivan will do next but you want to find out. Yet, like the true greats of any sport, what really sets O’sullivan apart is not just that he has been the first to do something, but that he is almost certain to be the last.
A span of 29 years between major titles? A ranking tournament win at the age of 17? A World Championship victory at the age of 46? A maximum 147 break in 5min 8sec? A World Championship win in less than two hours? A sequence of 38 consecutive professional wins? All highly unlikely to be repeated. And so back to that poll. If Hendry was at 31, then that surely places O’sullivan straight into the top 30. I would argue he stands comparison with any of the top 10: Sir Andy Murray, Sir Bobby Charlton, Daley Thompson, Sir Ian Botham, Sir Mo Farah, Sir Steve Redgrave, Sir AP Mccoy, George Best, Sir Bradley Wiggins and Sir Chris Hoy.
And O’sullivan appears far from finished. He said he would continue for at least two more years but that, yes, he would like to go beyond that. Do not bet against it. He plays by different rules to most and, allied to an infatuation with the sport, he is fastidious about his preparation. Indeed, when his record and place among the all-time greats was raised in Sheffield this week, there was an ominous response. “Never judge a person midway through their career,” he said.