At 50, Ronnie O'Sullivan is still going strong and we must continue to enjoy his greatness
Updated 02/12/2025 at 09:13 GMT
Ronnie O’Sullivan is back playing competitive snooker on UK soil for the first time since the World Championship as he opens his UK Championship challenge against Zhou Yuelong on Tuesday. Three days later, the seven-time world champion turns 50 years of age. Watch and stream the 2025/26 snooker season, including the UK Championship, live on TNT Sports and discovery+.
'I caused a lot of damage' - O'Sullivan on regrets, 'vulnerable' times
Video credit: TNT Sports
Ronnie O’Sullivan is not only snooker’s best and most successful player, but its greatest survivor.
Buffeted by the winds of fame, well-publicised addictions and the pressures associated with top-level sport, he has stayed the course and, as he turns 50, found a degree of serenity at odds with his often tumultuous if glorious career.
As he celebrates his landmark birthday on Friday, he should be proud not just of his considerable achievements, but of the fact that he is healthy, happy and, in the eyes of many players, still the man to beat.
It is fitting that this milestone falls during the UK Championship, the tournament where O’Sullivan sensationally announced himself as a major star by becoming its youngest champion as a 17-year-old in 1993. Thirty years later, he became its oldest winner at 47, extending his record in the event to eight titles.
Over those three decades, he established himself as by far snooker’s leading attraction, a mercurial genius with a penchant for self-destruction, constantly having to pull himself back from the brink and somehow following up lapses in discipline with astonishing performances on the table.
There has never been anyone quite like him. Snooker has had its great champions of previous eras, garlanded with more trophies than they knew what to do with. O’Sullivan grew up admiring Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry and later became friends with Ray Reardon.
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The sport has also been blessed with its more flamboyant characters, players who draw support not through what they have won but how they play and the often chaotic way in which they live. O’Sullivan is very close to Jimmy White and speaks of affection for Alex Higgins.
But O’Sullivan himself uniquely straddles both camps. Equal parts talisman and rebel, he has won more of what matters than any other player while remaining an exciting, kinetic presence in the arena. He does not just make you watch, he makes you feel. Even those who do not take to him cannot look away.
So much about this complex man is a contradiction, including his love-hate attitude to the sport he has conquered. To O’Sullivan, snooker is the storm as well as the shelter from it.
He knows he is good, though perhaps does not appreciate just how much better he is than most. At the same time, he believes there is a perfect way to play. He has touched this higher plain on occasions before seeing it slip again from his grasp. Chasing this kind of snooker nirvana is what keeps him going – and keeps him frustrated, leading to outbursts which have become an essential part of his story and disappointed even his staunchest supporters.
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'I caused a lot of damage' - O'Sullivan on regrets, 'vulnerable' times
Video credit: TNT Sports
It is 31 years since O’Sullivan first threatened to retire, following a quarter-final defeat to Ken Doherty at the 1994 UK Championship. He was 18. Doherty said he would be a "silly boy" if he went through with quitting. He did not, but a pattern was set.
There has been talk of retirement pretty much every year since, lapped up by a strangely credulous media who treat each threat as if it is the first.
The truth is, O’Sullivan has tried separation but never gone through with divorce. Snooker remains an essential part of who he is. There have been many times when he has thought he would be happier without it, but perhaps just as many times when the prospect of walking away created too much uncertainty about his future.
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'I don't think he is match sharp' - White says O'Sullivan needs to play more before UK Championship
Video credit: TNT Sports
When he did take several months off following his 2012 World Championship triumph, he became listless, sat at home watching snooker on TV and eventually driving to Alexandra Palace to attend a semi-final of the 2013 Masters. Far from embracing life away from the circuit, he found its pull too hard to resist.
In more recent times, he has found a balance, not playing in everything and prioritising events in China and Saudi Arabia, where he can rightly command considerable fees for his attendance.
It was in Jeddah in August that he amazed us yet again by making two maximum breaks in his semi-final win at the Saudi Arabia Masters against Chris Wakelin, proof that age has not dimmed his capacity to dazzle audiences.
If AI were asked to create a gift to snooker, it would come up with Ronnie O’Sullivan. However, ask players about him and most will tell you that they do not really know the man. He tends to keep his distance, refusing to get drawn in to the often toxic chatter backstage.
We can only piece together his personality through what we have observed. He is a sensitive man, shyer than people realise, and not always comfortable as the centre of attention - even if he accepts that this is his status as long as he plays at the highest level.
He is capable of deep thought on a range of issues and has many times demonstrated a private kindness at odds with his brasher public persona.
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'I'm not that driven by it' - O'Sullivan on staying motivated in latter stage of career
Video credit: TNT Sports
He does not act like a millionaire, does not flaunt his success. It was telling a few years ago that while some players competed to see who could wear the most expensive watch, O’Sullivan sported a £10 Casio he had bought at a petrol station.
He can get bored easily and this leads to an unfiltered way of speaking which can sometimes bring trouble. Daniel Wells has spoken of how affected he was by O’Sullivan opining live on air that he should go part-time as a player because he would never win anything.
He famously called lower ranked players "numpties" and said he would have to lose limbs to drop out of the top 50. He has an antipathy to authority figures, although this does not seem to extend to organisers of events where he is well remunerated.
Judd Trump said you have to understand O’Sullivan’s background to appreciate the person he has become. He achieved sudden fame while at the same time dealing with a traumatic family life. It may have been a deliciously entertaining soap opera for the media and audiences, but for him, it was real, made harder by being in the spotlight.
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'I don't think Ronnie has that anymore' - O'Sullivan's desire questioned
Video credit: TNT Sports
Running replaced drink and drugs as an outlet to get away from it all. O’Sullivan worked with Dr. Steve Peters to better understand his mind and how to cope with the pressures of playing. It helped rescue his career, but more importantly assisted him in making sense of himself.
He turned professional in 1992 when the first George Bush was president and Donald Trump appeared in Home Alone 2. That year, at the age of 16, he played Fred Davis, the eight-time postwar world champion, in a qualifier. Davis was 78 at the time.
Now, there is a 14-year-old on tour and young, hungry players from all over the world snapping at the heels of the established order.
Despite these shifting sands of time and snooker, O’Sullivan remains relevant. Moreover, he is still at the top. His longevity is a tribute to his strength of character and mental resilience, a will and talent to survive the many changes and challenges he has faced.
More than anything, O’Sullivan is human. He has made mistakes – we all have – but nobody has done more to keep snooker relevant, vibrant and popular these last 30 years, or arguably in its whole history.
Most importantly, he is still here. He is still Ronnie.
Happy birthday to him. We will miss him dearly when he is finally gone.
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Watch and stream the 2025/26 snooker season, including the UK Championship, live on TNT Sports and discovery+
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