The O'Sullivan Enigma

Last night Ronnie O'Sullivan fired a remarkable 10th 147 break at the World Open in Glasgow after halting play when on nine points to check the prize for a maximum.  He was told there was no separate purse but cleared up to beat Mark King 3-0.  The 34-year-old appeared content to end on the pink in the final frame and had to be persuaded to pot the black Before you read what I am going to say I would like you to watch this interview done by the BBC.  From this there are two questions to be asked.  Has Ronnie O'Sullivan finally lost all interest in the sport of Snooker?  And does he have the right to ask for a performance related bonus that used to be standard?

      Ronnie O'Sullivan is in my opinion the greatest snooker player of all time and that in itself is his downfall.  I truly believe that he got to the top, won the major events and then has become bored of playing that level of snooker.  It is a curse of his greatness, he rarely ever looks overjoyed at winning anything, he plays the game with both hands almost as a test to himself to see if he could do it and he doesn't even travel to all the events now.  His is no doubt an arrogant man but if you were so could at something that your didn't find it entertaining or even interesting could you stop yourselves from becoming arrogant.  He now plays when he feels like it and for the money.

     The second question is a very hard one to answer, snooker was a sport that was in danger of disappearing and slowly fade from our mind but Barry Hearn, the man behind the success of darts, has come to be the savour of snooker.  He has intoduced new quicker forms of the games to be bring in new fans and new sponsors, but now that there are more events will the prize money get spread across the new events or will the new income get added to the prize pool. 

      O'Sullivan rightly in my opinion is upset that there isn't a bonus for scoring a maximum 147 in a match, most previous tournament have had prizes ranging from cars to £147,000 which the world championship had recently awarded.  A 147 break in snooker is one of the greatest things a snooker player can achieve and to not be rewarded for it is very harsh.  I am not surprised that Ronnie didn't want to finish of the 147, the tournament with gain media attention because of his terrific feat but he is not rewarded.  Even if the world of snooker is looking to move forward you still have to keep your players happy otherwise who are the fans going to watch.