RONNIE O'SULLIVAN NAMES THE TWO SNOOKER PLAYERS HE BELIEVES ARE BETTER THAN HIM

Ronnie O'Sullivan is widely regarded as the greatest snooker player of all time.

But according to The Rocket, who is in action against Jackson Page at the Crucible this Wednesday, there are two players he considers to be better than him, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry.

He told The BBC: "I don't regard myself as the greatest. I'm one of them, maybe. You've got Hendry, Davis, and my hat's in the ring with them. I've had a different career to them.

"They did it over a ten-year period, whereas I've sort of gone off track, got myself together, back off track, then got myself back together. I've had to go on longer to get what I've got.

"I was a bit all over the show at times with stuff going on off the table and that can affect how you perform on it. Hendry and Davis pretty much had everything fitted around them to be focused on snooker and I didn't have that."

O'Sullivan won the UK Championship and the Masters earlier this season and is now looking to win a Triple Crown for the first time in his career by coming out on top in the World Snooker Championship.

He is the favourite to win the title for an eighth time, which would move him clear of Hendry on seven - a record the pair currently jointly hold in the modern era.

O'Sullivan added: "As a kid, I would have been desperate to be up there with those guys. But when you get there you see it as a bit of an anti-climax and it's not as great as you thought it would be. By then you're so far in, it's too late to back out and live it all again. You go, 'I've got what I've got' and you take the other benefits of it."

Welsham Page has faced O'Sullivan twice in his career with the latter coming out on top both times, including in October's English Open. The Rocket has put his form and longevity in the game down to positive lifestyle changes.

He said: "I love playing. I get to travel pretty much wherever I want to go to play snooker and take time off when I want to. I'm my own boss, and they're the most important things.

"You want to win because competitiveness has been in me. I have to have that approach no matter what. Whether that makes me the greatest or not, I don't know. It doesn't really matter."

2024-04-24T10:49:27Z dg43tfdfdgfd