Ronnie O’Sullivan is a 'religious experience' like Roger Federer - What will snooker's Immortal Man produce at Crucible after era-defining 153 break?

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Ronnie O’Sullivan seemed to arrive in the world fully formed. It feels like the very origins of snooker were always building towards the game's second coming via Essex in 1992. Ahead of a record-extending 34th straight appearance in the 50th World Championship at the Crucible Theatre, live on TNT Sports and HBO Max, April 18-May 4, Desmond Kane studies the enduring appeal of snooker's golden GOAT.

WATCH IN FULL - Every pot from O'Sullivan's history-making break of 153

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"When I was younger, I just wanted to get there and experience it on one occasion, but to go there year after year has been quite something. Obviously, the Crucible delivers drama. You know it can turn your year around and your career around." - Ronnie O'Sullivan, seven-time world snooker champion

They say he plays a young man’s game.

At the age of 50, that is probably meant as a compliment, but when applied to the rather staggering life and times of Ronnie O’Sullivan, on and off the snooker table, it also sounds slightly confusing.

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In the modern era of professionalism, it would be difficult to find anyone that would play an old man’s game on the old green baize, harking back to a time, mainly during the televised golden days of the 1970s and 1980s, when tactical titans like Ray Reardon revelled in elongated safety battles with safety in mind.

In such a cut-throat climate these days, as witnessed at the World Open in Yushan, which was attacked with as much gleeful abandon as nine-ball pool down your local, anyone refusing pots in preference of a percentage shot quickly ends up as dead as a disused half-butt.

It rapidly becomes a case of kill or be killed by fast-moving assassins dressed in waistcoats and bow-ties, sporting deceptive smiles and devilish wiles, waiting to administer the deathly blow seconds before they offer up a handshake.

At least in boxing, they try to knock you out before the victorious prizefighter affords their dazed opponent a conciliatory embrace.

In the noble art of snooker, the fist-bumping O’Sullivan has always been the main suspect in this ongoing game of whodunnit.

O'Sullivan reflects on 30 years since first UK Championship title - 'No one knew who I was'

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Cluedo with a cue inside the Crucible Theatre has always found snooker’s very own Colonel Mustard cutting the mustard.

”I enjoy the battle. I call it the mustard and I enjoy smothering myself in the mustard, because whatever I do after snooker, it’s not going to be mustard,” O’Sullivan told reporters after winning the sixth of his seven world titles in 2020.

'Tumbling records'

For O’Sullivan, mustard is the new black.

It has been this way since he began potting blacks as a teenage rookie in 1992, racking up 74 qualifying wins in his first 76 matches at the old Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool, including a record sequence of victories in his first 38 outings.

Despite his subsequent well-publicised battles with booze, drugs and depression, the records have kept tumbling in the ongoing O’Sullivan opus of tortured genius, fear and random outbursts of self-loathing.

But then there is the wondrous snooker part of the package, the marrow of his ambition.

The most centuries (1,325), the most 147s (17), the era-defining 153, the fastest 147 (five minutes and eight seconds), the first double 147 in one session, the record number of ranking titles (41), the youngest (19) and oldest (48) Masters winner and the youngest (17) and oldest (47) UK winner…

The list goes on and on, seemingly set to stand the test of time.

He’s done it again! Watch as O’Sullivan makes second 147 in stunning semi-final showing

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O’Sullivan has suggested an eighth world title in Sheffield will square the circle in his golden career, after victories in 2001, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2020 and 2022 saw him equal Stephen Hendry's tally between 1990-1999.

Jimmy 'Whirlwind' White, the six-time world finalist, is convinced he still has the minerals for the job at hand.

"Before these last few events, you thought he had a chance," White told TNT Sports. "Now, you’ve got to make him favourite because he’s playing superbly. So I think we will see Ronnie win his eighth world title."

Despite such sweeping proclamations, O'Sullivan projects a constantly restless nature of incompleteness.

Which tends to place conquering snooker above achieving contentment solely on earning spot prizes.

For O'Sullivan, it is not only about winning, but how you win, which keeps him coming back to the table over the past four decades amid countless threats to retire.

Before he made off with his first world title in 2001, O’Sullivan’s most memorable encounter in Sheffield was perhaps upsetting Canada's Alain Robidoux by playing left-handed at an event in 1996.

Robidoux later apologised when he realised the young ambidextrous Ronnie was proficient at potting balls off both wings.

Like the game in general, O'Sullivan has endured a love-hate relationship with the sport's most celebrated venue since losing 10-7 to Alan McManus on his Crucible debut in 1993.

‘I still feel a bit rusty’ – O’Sullivan jokes about form after historic 153 break

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He has been fined £20k for assault, removed his shoes during a match there, reportedly smashed up his cue in a dressing room, made lewd gestures, argued with referees and got embroiled in 'shouldergate' with fellow Essex potter Ali Carter, a man he defeated in two world finals.

Never a dull moment, it feels like O'Sullivan's surreal yet sublime one-man magic show has been running at the Crucible longer than The Mousetrap in London's West End.

Set against the personal despair of seeing his father imprisoned for murder during his formative years, a sense of maturity has overtaken such days of wild unpredictability when, as he describes it, your inner chimp is let loose in Tesco.

Such exhibits of organised chaos are also the reason why people warm to O’Sullivan as they did fellow 'People's Champions' White and Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins in representing their own foibles, flaws and faults.

Unlike Jimmy, O'Sullivan never did get around to visiting HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight to discuss the merits of cue ball spin with Ronnie Kray.

But there remains a wonderful sense of theatre about O'Sullivan, a touch of farce, which he shares with Higgins in that the public never quite know what they are going to get. Which keeps them coming back in their millions to binge on the next season of a gripping 34-year-old box set.

'An otherworldly game'

The sense of an ending partly explains why the former world No. 1 is still on the go, projecting an inner glow which fellow 'Class of 92' icon John Higgins once described as akin to the 'Ready Brek man'.

Now he is the ready break man, at times thriving amid the pressure and expectation levels of being the GOAT.

If he does indeed play a young man’s game, and he is far from a hoary old hopeful, at times he also reaches the alternative universe of an otherworldly game.

When O’Sullivan is in his happy place, his technique feels like it is coated by a time-defying emollient.

He is probably the only snooker icon of modern times, in comparison to Steve Davis, Hendry, White or Higgins, to pot his way towards the Palace of Wisdom, hinting at a higher power, momentarily touching Eden if you Adam and Eve it.

Flashback: O'Sullivan's 'whirlwind' century which fell just short of world record after VAR review

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It is not only the standard which he reaches, it is the longevity and ability to adapt in striving for a uniquely elusive form of expressive beauty in elite sport.

Producing the highest break in the history of the sport, his 153 against Ryan Day in the World Open quarter-finals last week was achieved at a stage in life when previous generations would have been content to break their own age.

"The grand old man. Follow that. A wonderful break from Fred, there he is smiling all over his face," said commentator Jack Karnehm after eight-time world champion Fred Davis produced 109, the first century break of the 1979 World Championship, amid hearty applause from a match referee sporting a splendid yellow blazer, rosette and redoubtable pair of flares.

At the age of 17, O’Sullivan remarkably enough once played Fred Davis, brother of 15-time world champion Joe Davis, then 79, during one of those qualifiers for the 1992 Grand Prix, winning 5-1 in a generation game which AI could not generate.

The grand old man has over time been replaced by the immortal man, who is only one short of equalling Fred's pre-Crucible trophy haul between 1948 and 1956.

'The Mozart of snooker'

While the 153 will probably never be touched from here to eternity, there are other sprinklings of gold dust that stand out as landmark contributions in how to bring greater meaning to what can be achieved with cue in hand.

Things that seem impossible have been made eminently possible by O’Sullivan since he became the youngest winner of a ranking title with a 10-6 win over Hendry in the 1993 UK final, a record that continues to hold 33 years later.

'The best snooker I've ever played' - O'Sullivan picks favourite tournament wins

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Look at the nature of his 147 in the final frame of the 2013 Welsh Open against Ding Junhui, a break illuminated by a left-handed shot on the final red near a cushion in baulk with deep screw to land on the black.

Or the 92 he ran in against Carter in the final of the 2012 World Championship. With the title match locked at 3-3 in the first session, Carter missed a red to a centre pocket trailing 16-0, but probably thought he would return to the table.

With pink and black out of commission, and several reds welded to side cushions, the frame seemed destined to go deep.

The late Willie Thorne, watching with some relish in the commentary box, boldly predicted that "he'd do well to get above 20 here", before witnessing O'Sullivan embark upon his own version of creative genius with only a snooker stick to apply his colourful brush strokes.

"Ronnie O'Sullivan, the Mozart of snooker, has just made as magisterially perfect a clearance as I've ever seen. I'm bathed in bliss," commented the engrossed Stephen Fry, actor, comedian, writer and dedicated snooker lover.

Then there was O'Sullivan's own outlandish 82 he conjured up in the 18th frame of his 17-11 win over John Higgins in the 2022 semi-finals, which truly was something to behold.

And beauty remains in the eye of the beholder. The do-or-die red he downed in his 6-5 win over Wu Yize in the semi-finals of the World Open was reminiscent of the outrageous three-frame barrage he produced from 16-14 behind to edge four-time world champion Mark Selby 17-16 in the last four in Sheffield in 2020.

More Ronnie magic! Watch as O’Sullivan books spot in final with mesmeric clearance

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"Ronnie's 153 was an amazing feat to do," said Selby speaking to Sky Sports on Wednesday. "It had to be him, didn't it? If somebody was going to do it, it had to be him. It was probably the only record he's not got.

"Ronnie is the greatest player of all time, and anything he does, it doesn't really surprise you. He's just an absolute genius and a credit to our game."

To witness O’Sullivan playing snooker from the Gods, of which he might very well be one, is to experience the divine.

"Reading this is like watching an O'Sullivan break: hypnotic, dazzling and impossible to tear yourself away from," wrote Fry about Unbreakable , one of O'Sullivan's three autobiographies.

"When will the world fully realise that Ronnie O'Sullivan is one of the top three greatest sportsmen alive, a GOAT in the same triumvirate as Tiger Woods and Roger Federer?

"This utterly compelling, surprising and beautifully put together book shows us that there is so much more to him than outrageous natural talent. He is as fascinating a human as he is a player. A fabulous read."

'Perpetual motion'

When we reference fascinating reads, there was a famous essay 20 years ago by the American writer David Foster Wallace in The New York Times which described Roger Federer as a religious experience, based on the comments of a Wimbledon bus driver, who compared watching the Swiss player in the flesh as a ”bloody near-religious experience”.

Centred around the 20-time Grand Slam winner's victory over fierce foe Rafael Nadal in the 2006 final on Centre Court, two years before their five-set epic was won by Nadal, Foster Wallace noted the contrast between beauty and beast.

In particular, the balletic nature of the artful Roger and his ability to make a heavy-hitting sport feel like something more meaningful than merely grunt and overwhelming power.

"Successfully returning a hard-served tennis ball requires what’s sometimes called 'the kinaesthetic sense,' meaning the ability to control the body and its artificial extensions through complex and very quick systems of tasks," wrote Foster Wallace.

"English has a whole cloud of terms for various parts of this ability: feel, touch, form, proprioception, coordination, hand-eye coordination, kinesthesia, grace, control, reflexes, and so on."

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For O’Sullivan, the same rules of muscle memory apply in snooker. All of the Federer characteristics are present in the O’Sullivan approach, one of the few sports people or persons plying their trade on this mortal coil still able to draw gasps of breath.

Or even an unlikely inner snigger from within when you witness the audacity of his output with the white ball seemingly controlled by radar as he glides from one shot to the next.

O'Sullivan shares his nickname with the Australian tennis great Rod Laver, the original sporting Rocket, but he manages to combine the crunching sounds of pots with a sculptor's touch and vision.

Like tennis, snooker is based on a points system. Unlike tennis, it is a still-ball game like golf. Which means you get time to consider what your next pot, potential miss or bail out will be, rather than approach a return with reactionary guesswork.

Unlike tennis, snooker does not give you a right to reply. If it all goes awry, this leaves you time to stew in your chair. Which can be a dangerous place to find yourself if you are feeling perplexed, an outpost O'Sullivan has inhabited with frustrated familiarity.

Yet he is also one of the few snooker players who finds answers to the puzzle in perpetual motion and manages to contain himself when he cannot find solutions within.

'A lot of excitement'

His stylish gait and superior technique is at one with the sport, explaining why the human system was seemingly built to have a go at snooker.

There is the pause approaching the white that appears to make time stand still before he delivers the cue in a serene slice of personal escapism, with the reverberating cue through white providing a sense of timing perhaps lost elsewhere in his life.

"I’ve been playing for 33 years now on the main tour. For any snooker fan around the world, I’m always going to have a good support because of how I’ve played over the years," said O'Sullivan earlier this season.

"I’m really grateful for that. I feel like that’s probably been the best thing about my career. I obviously play the game the way people like to watch it.

"They want to be entertained and want to go away watching something feeling, 'I got something from that.' If it makes them feel good about themselves, then I feel good.

"Maybe it’s a bit like when Tiger Woods used to play golf, when Federer played tennis, Lionel Messi plays football, people seem to get great enjoyment from it. I’m happy to be that guy."

Ronnie O'Sullivan meets fans in Hong Kong.

Image credit: Getty Images

A bit like Federer during his pomp, especially in the all-white attire of Wimbledon, O’Sullivan is probably deserving of performance points for artistic merit.

If there were judges at the end of a snooker match, O’Sullivan would win in terms of sense of adventure and alluring aesthetics as much as Ilia Malinin on ice.

His personal quest to win by entertaining the masses in a style similar to White and Higgins, beyond the era of pints of confidence and packets of Woodbine, feels like a throwback to a more innocent time.

'Greatness has no ceiling'

He doesn’t just pot snooker balls, he can transform his sport into something else, building a grand tapestry of beauty at a speed and alacrity that brings together mind, arm and soul in perfect harmony.

"Everyone knows Ronnie is the greatest of all time, not just in this world, in this galaxy," said Thepchaiya Un-Nooh after his 10-7 win over O'Sullivan in the World Open final that saw the Thai player finish with his third 147 of the season.

O'Sullivan and Un-Nooh are also the two fastest players in the world over recent years, both enjoying average shot times under 17.5 seconds, but O'Sullivan sees the next shot faster than any living being.

"Greatness has no ceiling," commented fellow GOAT Novak Djokovic, the record 24-time major winner, after O’Sullivan basked in his 153 in Yushan.

If America had warmed to snooker, O’Sullivan would be held in the same regard as Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan or Tom Brady.

As it is, he will have to make do with snooker-loopy China in introducing the world to its first 153.

"It was a great buzz," he said. "I could have tried to get the extra black, but I just thought nobody had made a break bigger than 147 on TV, so I wanted to be the first.

"I've been the first of many things, so I thought I might as well get that one as well. I feel blessed to achieve these things.

"Thank God for YouTube and streaming. If you are interested in a subject, the algorithms will throw all sorts of good stuff at you."

Like those Federer moments, the O’Sullivan moments transcend his sport.

They provide the framework for how it should be done by any sportsperson seeking public affection and perhaps a Jimmy White or Morrissey-style adoration from fervent followers.

"When a long time passes, and I'm not here, there will still be people saying it is pretty cool what that guy did," said O'Sullivan.

They say he plays a young man’s game. But young men don't play snooker like O'Sullivan. Nobody does.

As the Wimbledon bus driver could have said, watching the Rocket lift off is a ”bloody near-religious experience”.

With the Crucible here to stay for the long haul, O’Sullivan is going nowhere any time soon apart from Sheffield next month.

For snooker’s immortal man, finding room to improve upon immortality makes his latest Crucible pilgrimage an odyssey of opportunity.

One where immortality again beckons.

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Multiple Crucible winners

7 - Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stephen Hendry
6 - Steve Davis, Ray Reardon
4 - Mark Selby, John Higgins
3 - Mark Williams, John Spencer
2 - Alex Higgins

Rocket's road to seventh heaven in Sheffield

2001 defeated John Higgins (Sco) 18-14
2004 defeated Graeme Dott (Sco) 18-8
2008 defeated Ali Carter (Eng) 18-8
2012 defeated Ali Carter (Eng) 18-11
2013 defeated Barry Hawkins (Eng) 18-12
2020 defeated Kyren Wilson (Eng) 18-8
2022 defeated Judd Trump (Eng) 18-13

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