Are we witnessing the demise of a British sporting great?

How does one become a British sporting great? To gain the keys to this elite club, you could win multiple world titles, perhaps, or dominate a sport across decades. Ronnie O’Sullivan had achieved both of those things ten years ago, and since then he has won nine triple crown events, a success rate of 30%. He is undoubtedly a British sporting great. He might be the British sporting great of our time.

And yet there comes a time when even the inhuman begin to look human. We don’t expect geniuses to be fallible. In Ronnie’s case, this feeling is even stronger – it almost looks like he’s missing deliberately. When he plays left-handed it appears as though he might be giving his opponents a chance, but this is Ronnie O’Sullivan we are talking about, a man who redefined what it means to be ambidextrous.

To see him struggling is a shame. We know about the troubles he’s had with his mental health away from the baize, but he looks to be in good shape. We know that a snooker player’s shelf-life is finite – the eyes inevitably begin to go at a certain age – but there’s been no noise of this from the O’Sullivan camp. He has been vocal about his disinterest, but is this the cause of his poor form, or a symptom?

On the surface at least, this isn’t an awful crisis. O’Sullivan’s barren run of ranking titles extends only as far back as the World Grand Prix January. During that tournament, he delivered one of the best exhibitions of snooker we have ever seen, beating Ding Junhui 6-1 in a match where Ding had a pot success rate of 97%. Terrifying. Since the start of this season, though, he has scarcely looked like winning. Defeats at the hands of He Guoqiang at the English Open, Si Jiahui at the Saudi Arabia Masters, Pang Junxu at the International Championship, and today against Xiao Guodong are testament to that. Maybe he is just entirely committed to the promotion of snooker in China? No, the manner of his defeat the afternoon – 4-3 – where he relinquished a three frame lead, suggests that we may well have seen the best of Ronnie O’Sullivan. 

O’Sullivan has brought so much to the sport. His legion of fans has at times frustrated the purists - the ‘come on Ronnie’ brigade are more vocal than supporters of others – but the fact is that people pay the entry fee simply to watch him. I was lucky enough to watch him live for the first (and probably last) time at Alexandra Palace earlier this year. The raucous applause as he entered the arena invigorating. Snooker will undoubtedly miss that.

It could be argued that snooker has been reliant on O’Sullivan for too long. Win or lose, he dominates the headlines. The same could be said for his old foes, Mark Williams and John Higgins, whose longevity is equally as impressive. Is it time for snooker to seek out some new heroes? Almost definitely. But let’s not push O’Sullivan out the door just yet. If this is to be his farewell tour, let’s enjoy every minute of it.

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By Leon Parrott