Why Ronnie O'Sullivan's snooker 'disease' is a familiar misdiagnosis - unlike the terminal decline of Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry
By Desmond Kane
Published 31/08/2026 at 12:41 GMT+1
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For Ronnie O'Sullivan, the malady lingers on. "It is just embarrassing. The disease came back big time today," said O'Sullivan in describing a "really poor" performance after losing 6-3 to Chang Bingyu in the semi-finals of the Wuhan Open.
O'Sullivan hits cue on floor after frustrating miss against Selby
Video credit: TNT Sports
He added: "If I'm honest, I don't think I will ever get over it. I will see out the next 18 months and see how we go."
O'Sullivan has cut a disconsolate figure over the past week, lamenting a "disease" which he feels has ruined a reliable technique in delivering a consistent cue action.
To the untrained eye, nothing much has changed with O'Sullivan's game, with his speed of thought and break-building still second to none, and still sharp enough to reach the latter stages of major tournaments.
He defeated Stephen Maguire 5-2 and recent China Open winner Mark Selby 5-3 in Wuhan, producing four centuries and several breaks over 50, before losing 6-3 to Chang Bingyu.
Chang progressed to defeat Zhao Xintong, the new world No. 1, 10-7 in the final for his maiden ranking event triumph.
For most players, there would be room for positive vibes after such a productive few days, but O'Sullivan has constantly prioritised personal pride in performance over winning at all costs.
If he feels he is not reaching optimum levels, all is lost. Yet is there anything new about O'Sullivan's unique state of despair?
Win or lose, he is almost as famous for being the potting world's pope of mope when it comes to brutal self assessment.
There has not been a year gone by that O'Sullivan has not threatened to quit snooker since he became the sport's youngest ranking winner at the age of 17, with a 10-6 victory over Stephen Hendry at the 1993 UK Championship in Preston - a record that still stands 33 years later.
There is a familiarity about his latest analysis coming from a figure who first threatened to walk away only a year after that totemic UK victory.
'Physically impossible'
"I can't take much more of the way I've been playing. It's physically impossible to carry on this way," said O'Sullivan during the defence of his world title at the Crucible in 2005.
"I'm not going to throw in the towel for a couple of years yet. I'll give it a go and see if I can get something started next season.
"Of course, I want to be coming here for the next 10 or 12 years. I'm not looking for perfection. I just want to get my game to somewhere half decent."
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'Absolute shocker' - O'Sullivan fumes after 'horrible' miss
Video credit: TNT Sports
After carrying off a record-extending eighth Masters - becoming the oldest and younger winner of snooker's biggest invitational tournament - and World Grand Prix with a 10-7 win over Judd Trump in January 2024, the last of his record 41 ranking title wins, he continued to express consternation.
"Bad cueing," he said. "I’m getting no satisfaction from it, I just really don't. I’d rather cue well and lose than cue awful and win tournaments.”
It could be argued that it is these self-imposed standards which have helped him become the greatest player of all time.
But it also explains a sense of anxiety and unhelpful mood swings when snooker interferes with his equilibrium, a vexed state which saw him quit a UK Championship quarter-final against Stephen Hendry 20 years ago.
If you let a sport define your very being, you are immediately backing a loser.
'Self-fulfilling prophecies'
During his fly-on-the-wall documentary The Edge of Everything, when he was 46 and won a record-equalling seventh world title with an 18-13 win over Trump in 2022, O'Sullivan asks Professor Steve Peters, the psychiatrist who works on the mental side of elite sport, about the sands of time.
And how many grains are left in the green baize hourglass for him.
"So what age can I go to, so I don't have to question myself?," wonders O'Sullivan.
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O'Sullivan hopeful of curing snooker 'disease' after making semis
Video credit: TNT Sports
Peters comes back with an answer that obviously continues to burn deeply, judging by his musings in Wuhan over the past week.
"If you keep looking at your age, you go back to these self-fulfilling prophecies," he responds.
"You're going to start saying 'Oh, I'm 46, I won't do as well!' I don't want that. If you want to win, and you want to keep producing the goods, then forget age."
At the age of 50, O'Sullivan would certainly benefit from living in the moment, and dispense with burying deadlines about when, how and if he can return to a different time - or winning an eighth world title.
He should also probably forget about a perceived golden age for his game because the elixir of yesteryear is not one which brought unconfined joy.
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If you closely study his career, O'Sullivan has probably never enjoyed a sustained period of dominance in the sport because he tends to play and perform when the mood takes him.
This is a bloke who quite incredibly opted to take a year out between his fourth and fifth Crucible victories in 2012 and 2013.
Unlike Steve Davis in the 1980s or Stephen Hendry in the 1990s, there has never been a decade where O'Sullivan was the dominant force.
That is because the game has become tougher with rising standards, greater demands, and the emergence of a vested interest in China.
Rather, there have been four decades of O'Sullivan building a body of work, amid the farcical exhibits of discontentment, that is far greater than any of his contemporaries, past or present, having managed a sweltering 41 ranking event victories, a record 17 maximums and over 1,300 centuries.
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'Special moment for the game' - Top snooker stars react to O'Sullivan's record 153 break
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'Can't stay at the top'
Nobody is the outstanding player in the modern era of snooker. Apart from O'Sullivan when all the pieces fall into place rather than apart.
"I asked Stephen Hendry and Steve Davis, I spoke to them a couple of times," said O'Sullivan last week. "They said they probably played 10 years longer than they should have done.
"Because you always have this feeling, I want to play like I used to, because it’s a nice feeling.
"I’m not going to waste 10 years. I’ve wasted three or four, in my opinion, three or four years when it’s not been great."
Consulting Davis or Hendry is fine, but is largely a waste of time because neither player reached O'Sullivan's levels of ongoing excellence.
And both were finished relatively early in their respective careers.
Davis claimed his sixth and final world title at the age of 31 in 1989, while Hendry secured his seventh a decade later at 30. Neither man won a ranking title beyond the age of 37.
O'Sullivan is not the ideal person to be around when he loses a snooker match, such is the pressure he places upon himself to deliver perfection every time he turns out.
The inference that he does not care about his calling in life are classic self-deflection tactics, with snooker a labour of love that fascinates and infuriates, probably not in equal measure.
"I was watching Ronnie O'Sullivan on the practice table the other day, he was there for three-and-a-half hours," said Neil Robertson during the China Open.
"I was on the other table and I felt that if he is still putting the hours in at the age of 50, then I should be too."
The fear that O'Sullivan will lose what he once had is inevitable for every great champion.
As we perhaps witnessed in 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic's demise at the US Open on Sunday.
"I can't honestly say you'd stay at your peak, or else Muhammad Ali would still be world boxing champion." said Colin Montgomerie, Europe's leading golfer in the 1990s, as he analysed a notable decline in his own levels in his late 40s.
"You can't stay at the top indefinitely. But there have been people who have won on this tour older than me, and I still think there are a few wins in there somewhere."
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Chang produces 'one of the all-time great clearances' to claim Wuhan Open
Video credit: TNT Sports
'Lifestyle choice'
The nature of snooker, like golf and darts, lends itself to an extended stay at the top.
Some will point out that O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams, the 'Class of '92', have already set new standards for what can be achieved in terms of astonishing longevity in professional sport.
O'Sullivan has opted to miss the English Open and British Open and is due to return to the table at the Shenzhen Open to take on Jiang Jun in the last 64 on Monday, September 28, live with TNT Sports on HBO Max.
He played in only two UK events last season. It is a moot point if subscribing to such a strategy is beneficial to his well-being in terms of self-improvement.
"He didn’t put the graft in for this tournament. I am being harsh on him here," said Alan McManus, the 1994 Masters champions after O'Sullivan blew a 9-4 lead in losing 13-12 to John Higgins in the World Championship last 16 in April.
”The positives are that in my opinion, he has still got the juice to win this thing again. But that will only happen probably if he puts in the graft long-term.
"It’s a lifestyle choice, and it is Ronnie’s choice and that is fine. But, if he wants to win this thing again, and I think we all know he does, maybe he could change one or two things going forward next year. I hope he does.”
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There remains an unseen beauty in being able to win ugly in snooker, as battle-hardened characters like McManus, Higgins, Davis or Mark Selby will testify.
A plan B, or even C if you like, would perhaps serve O'Sullivan better in finding more meaning attached to winning matches, in accepting the run of the ball in life can be unforgiving.
Conditions of the table and personal emotions on any given day dictate that it is impossible to achieve perfection, certainly the sort to which the flamboyant nature of O'Sullivan aspires, in any individual sport.
Yet perhaps it is the edge of everything, the elusive sensation of bemusement that he will never quite complete the opus, that sustains the snooker GOAT.
As ever, he will play it as he sees it, on and off the table, but a sense of sporting hypochondria appears to be as much a challenge to overcome as any self-diagnosed disease.
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