‘It goes by so quickly and you start to feel very inferior.’ These are not feelings that professionals will experience that often, but take on Ronnie O’Sullivan on the biggest stage in snooker and these emotions can emerge.
It is 30 years since the Rocket made his Crucible debut and he will be returning to Sheffield this year as defending champion and world number one, looking to become the first player to win eight world titles in the modern era.
On his 30 previous visits to snooker’s most iconic venue O’Sullivan has dished out thrashings, scrapped to victories and been beaten on plenty of occasions himself. Win or lose, those who have faced the Rocket at the Crucible have gone through a unique experience and will never forget their meetings with the GOAT.
Barry Hawkins has got the better of O’Sullivan in Sheffield, scoring a memorable 13-12 win in 2016, but has also been downed by the Rocket in a semi and a World Championship final, witnessing quality from the Essex Exocet that he could scarcely believe.
‘I got back to 15-12 down and started fancying the job, I remember feeling more and more confident as the match went on,’ said Hawkins of the 2013 final. ‘I missed one red along the black rail and he punished me, cleared up like he did in nearly every frame, he didn’t seem to miss a ball. I remember thinking, “Jesus, what have you got to do to beat him?”
‘It is unique to play him because you build it up yourself. You try and treat every match the same but it brings a different atmosphere and sort of pressure to the game.
‘I suppose you put him on a bit of a pedestal and put yourself under pressure. It’s definitely a different match when you play him, you see a lot of players crumble.’
Some players may crumble, while others do almost nothing wrong as they watch O’Sullivan run off into the distance, powerless to stop him.
Anthony Hamilton, who has spent countless hours practicing with O’Sullivan over the years, was on the wrong end of a 13-3 battering in the 2004 quarter-finals and had never seen anything quite like what his opponent was producing.
‘It was, without doubt, the best snooker I’ve ever seen,’ said the Sheriff of Pottingham. ‘I remember saying to him at the end: “Ronnie, we could have played for a millennia and I wouldn’t have got more than five frames off you.” It was crazy. His safety just started to ramp up to the most ridiculous heights of all time, potted every 10ft ball he looked at and made 80 every poke.
‘I didn’t fancy winning it necessarily because it was Ronnie, but I fancied putting on a good show then after an hour or two I was like, “f***ing hell, this geezer has gone up about eight levels here!”
‘I felt like everybody else felt against him that year, you feel like you’re just part of the Ronnie O’Sullivan show and you have to do something extra special to change things around. It goes by so quick and you start to feel very inferior. It’s happened to better players than me.’
Lengthy World Championship matches just prolong the pain when facing a prime O’Sullivan, but Hamilton says it is pointless feeling embarrassed about a beating from the GOAT.
‘It feels worse at the Crucible because you’re there longer,’ he said. ‘A best of nine would be an hour and a half, but it’s a lot longer than that. I never felt embarrassed at all getting beat by a player like that at the Crucible because I know how good he is. If you got embarrassed about getting your pants taken down by Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, you’d be embarrassed your whole life.’
It was on his ninth visit to the Crucible that O’Sullivan won his first world title so those who took on a youthful, fresh-faced Rocket did have success against him, but even then it was far from easy.
John Parrott got the better of him in style back in 1994, hammering O’Sullivan 13-3 in the second round, but even then he knew there was something special about the teenager.
‘There’s always been an aura and a sparkle about him,’ said Parrott. ‘The trouble is you can sit in the chair and fall in love with him. I looked at it as a challenge, no one expected me to win, let’s give it a go and get stuck in.
‘It’s extremely intimidating, there’s no way round that. You realise when you come out that nearly all the crowd are there to watch him play so you need to have a fair bit of self belief.
‘You have to show him that you’re there to play because he feeds off weakness. If he sees someone not giving him the punishment he deserves then he just gets stronger. You need a bit of character about you.’
The crowd is another weapon in O’Sullivan’s arsenal as he is not just the best player ever, but arguably the most popular.
Mark Allen has faced the Rocket twice in Sheffield, picking up a win and a loss, and feels the O’Sullivan fans can go too far sometimes.
‘It’s just general rowdiness,’ he said. ‘But to the extent where they’re trying to put you off.
‘That’s not a reflection on Ronnie at all because he wouldn’t want that. He’s a competitor, but his crowd get away with murder at times and it’s something we have to deal with.
‘Don’t get me wrong, it creates a good atmosphere as well, some people shy away from it but I’m definitely not one of them.’
‘Strange’ is Anthony McGill’s opinion of an O’Sullivan crowd, and certainly a strange feeling after the Scot downed the Englishman in the second round in 2021.
‘Of course when you’re playing Ronnie it’s different, the crowd act different, they act strange,’ said McGill. ‘I don’t know why, it’s hard to deal with, they kind of act different.
‘When I potted match ball I felt like everyone thought, “oh God, we’re going to have to come back and watch him instead of Ronnie in the next round.” But that’s nothing to do with me.’
It can be easy to shy away from the challenge, subconsciously or not, with even other all-time greats saying that simply the fact that O’Sullivan is in the other seat is a challenge.
Neil Robertson was beaten by O’Sullivan at the Crucible in 2007 and 2012, during which he had a constant mental struggle to downplay the task at hand.
‘Back then I did struggle to play him, we didn’t have all that many tournaments, we didn’t see people as often so he still had that aura for me,’ he said. ‘I was trying to shake off the “I’m playing Ronnie” thing. I had it with [Stephen] Hendry as well.’
The crowd, the aura, the man’s monumental quality, the whole package makes facing O’Sullivan over long distances in Sheffield as tough a test as there is in the sport.
Hamilton said it had been an honour to play the Rocket on the big stage, but Dave Gilbert, after losing in round one to Ronnie last year said that it was something to avoid at all costs.
‘Why all these qualifiers call Ronnie out, trying to make a name for themselves I’ve no idea. Lunacy,’ said the Angry Farmer.
‘It’s just so hard playing Ronnie. There were a few shots where I was down on my shot and you get the crowd shouting out. It definitely affected me.
‘You don’t realise how hard it is against a player that never seems to mess up when he’s in the balls.’
O’Sullivan will begin the defence of his world title on Saturday morning when another player will face the sport’s ultimate test. Whoever that is may try and learn from experiences of others, but they may just experience the kind of Rocket masterclass that he has produced in Sheffield so many times before.
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