What level is Ronnie O`Sullivan at?

There's two Ronnie O`Sullivan's, before and after the work with (psychiatrist) Steve Peters that started giving results in 2012. Before that Ronnie O`Sullivan missed many events because of his own battles with his mind, and when he was at the table he just couldn't handle battles against slow players or big deficits, he was also irregular, nearly never defending a title apart from the Shot-Clocked Premier League, now an extinct event.

But don't get me wrong, he still misses most of the tournaments and he doesn't love playing slow opponents, but now his reasons are different. He does what makes him happy, Dr Peters helped him to find the right balance sharing his time with family, snooker and other stuff that makes him happy like his job with Eurosport and his Radio Show, and now he doesn't feel the same pressure, he realized he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone and when you're happy you practice better and enjoy playing a lot more. 

He plays when he wants to and not when he have to, and because of it he plays better. Last week during the Welsh Open he said he was bored, but because he had too much time by his own when he wanted to be playing Snooker all day long.

He enjoys playing now and that's why you see him giving everything he has into his matches, and winning more matches coming from behind. He also defends his titles now, he defended his World Crown for the first time in 2013, and that came after a season off. He also made a third consecutive Final at the Crucible in 2014. 

Since 2012 he also won 2 Masters', 2 Welsh Open's, 2 Champion of Champions', 1 German Masters, 1 Paul Hunter Classic, made 2 Maximum Breaks and reached a lot of Finals and Semi-Finals; In the last 5 World Championship's he either won or lost to the eventual winner.

Daily Mail

There's no doubt that O`Sullivan has found his peak after his 35th birthday, and most because of his "mental" work with Dr Steve Peters and also because of his experience (now when he takes time away from competition he knows very well what he'll face at the main stage on his return, and he also became a better player tactically), but everybody know the genius O`Sullivan is, the question is: how far is he above his opponents?

Well, I'd say he has reached the untouchable stage, everybody that plays Snooker knows that you can be good one day and rubbish the other day, and all you can do is trying the hardest you can. And if O`Sullivan is on a bad day, he tries his hardest and that's more than enough to beat anyone, that's the difference from the new version of Ronnie O`Sullivan to the old one, that's why he found his best now, in the past he didn't try as hard as he could.

But you should still argue "Well he tries hard, but on a bad day he could be beaten by players like Robertson, Trump and Selby". No, and that's why I say he has reached the "untouchable" level.

At The Masters last month O`Sullivan had a fantastic week, but didn't quite found his best form in the Final. So what he does? Put the pressure above his opponent, Barry Hawkins. Hawkins is a fantastic player, Top 8 in the World and everybody says he's very consistent. Well, the scoreline was 10-1 with O`Sullivan winning 10 frames on the bounce. Okay if you think Hawkins had a day off, but last week O`Sullivan played brilliantly at the Welsh Open, even better than at The Masters I think, but again failed to take that form into the Final. Then he found himself in a tough position, 2-5 behind against Neil Robertson, the player who was winning everything during the 8 months O`Sullivan wasn't playing competitive events. You'd say "now he's gonna have some punishment". Once again, no. He won a crucial frame before the end of the first session to trail 3-5 at the interval. And when they cameback O`Sullivan simply won 6 straight frames to beat the 2010 World Champion 9-5 finishing the match in style with a 141 Total Clearance, his 10th Century of the tournament.

Can he be beaten? Yes of course he can, but that will take a very good player, maybe a player yet to born as no one beat him in 2016 so far, that includes 8 Best-of-5 matches (format that everyone says anybody can win) at the Championship League in Crondon Park before The Masters. He played 6 of the best 25 players in the World there and became only the third player ever to win a Championship League Group undefeated.

Daily Mail

In the first day of the Welsh Open O`Sullivan caused a big buzz around. He made a 146 Break that "could possibly be a 147", but he played on the Pink off the 14th red after asking the prize money for a Maximum Break and get disappointed with the answer: £10k.

Result? Paddy Power offers him £61k to make a maximum during the event, the audience of the Snooker increases with the expectation of a Maximum and the sport makes all the headlines. Even though he was still criticized by some fans and fellow professionals. Thankfully the tournament didn't let the public down and Ding Junhui produced the so wanted 147.

Obviously there's a bit of disappointment about the non-147, but the Break just proves how talented he is and how good he's amongst the balls, he seems to stop them wherever he wants.

His Welsh Open title was so incredible that his fellow professionals couldn't do anything but congratulate him, Neil Robertson said: "Well done to Ronnie and his team last night. Great performance. He's what strives me to be the best I can", Shaun Murphy said: "We're seeing the bar being raised here by Ronnie O`Sullivan. Up to the rest of us to catch up" and Mark Williams said: "I can say I turned pro at the same time as the best player ever, and 27 years on he's still the best in the world. Awesome Ronnie O`Sullivan".

Let's just enjoy watching O`Sullivan while we still can, I believe he still got a few years ahead of him but obviously he's closer to the end of his career than the beginning.
Will Snooker lose when he retires? Yes, of course. Snooker will lose a big amount of talent and character, but others special players will come and I believe Snooker is a growing Sport, people won't stop watching because of him. You'd say tournaments without him don't feel the same but once he's definitely and fully retired people will realize Snooker is the best Sport in the World with or without Ronnie, and if you're waiting him to attend events you'll never watch one again.



Snooker keeps being played non-stop, O`Sullivan comes back to action next month with the Championship League Winner's Group and the World Grand Prix, but Groups 5 and 6 of the Championship League are being played this week and at the weekend we'll have the 6th and last European Tour taking place in Poland. You can follow everything through Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook.
All the papers articles featuring in the post are courtesy of my mate Chris Varney. Thanks for reading 😄