Ronnie O’Sullivan made a storming debut at the World Snooker Championship, beating Jackson Page 10-1 in the first round. “Racheta” managed a single break of over 100 points, but it was enough to set another record, that of being the first man in history to score a century in 30 consecutive editions of the World Championship.
Ronnie O’Sullivan, pure genius! Brilliant mass closing, at the World Championship
The seven-time world champion is preparing for the duel with Ryan Day in the round of 16, but in the meetings with the press in the last few days he also addressed other topics related to snooker. Ronnie has made it clear that he is in favor of moving the World Championship from the Crucible and has not ruled out the creation of a circuit separate from that run by the World Snooker Tour.
A few weeks before the World Championship, O’Sullivan signed a partnership with Saudi Arabia, becoming the ambassador of the tournaments that will be organized in the Gulf country.
Ronnie O’Sullivan, blunt message about the future of snooker, during the World Championship
Ronnie emphasized that there was no question of leaving the WST circuit, his collaboration with the Saudis being strictly related to the professional circuit tournaments that will be held there, but he emphasized that the establishment of a new circuit, on the model of golf or darts, would not be impossible, and the players have every right to consider any option, because they inevitably think about the financial factor.
“Every player has the right to do what they want to do, you see that in other sports like golf. It’s just like any other job, if you get a better offer, you’re going to go there. What does a better offer mean? To some people it might not be about the money, it might be about a reduced schedule, everyone has to make that decision for themselves, I’m just an open book, I’m here to listen to the best deal, come talk to me , you will find my contact details on Instagram.
The bottom line for me is that I just want to play and enjoy snooker, but we all have families to feed. Every sportit’s a business whether you like it or not so you have to do what’s right for you. We live in a competitive world, so it’s great that we can choose.
Every person in the world is like that, I have a friend who works for a company, but she was offered three or four times her salary to go and work in Australia, so she’s going to go and do that. She just wants a better salary, that happens sometimes.
I will go wherever I am treated well, wherever I feel appreciated. I go to Asia and Saudi Arabia and have a great time.I have a deal with Saudi Arabia and it has nothing to do with World Snooker. I’m committed to playing a few World Snooker events there. That’s my policy worldwide, if you want me to play the event, my promoter and agent get together and we talk. First come first served.There are 128 players in the circuit and each player has the right to decide what is best for him. I’m excited about the future and the things I’m doing. There are a lot of things in motion, who knows what will happen.”, O’Sullivan said, as quoted by metro.uk.
Recently, there have been more and more rumors that a parallel circuit to the one run by the WST could emerge in snooker. As happened in Golf, players would have the right to choose which competitions they would play in. Barry Hearn, chairman of Matchroom Sport, said players on the pro circuit were free to go wherever they wanted, but warned they would have to go through the Q School tournaments if they wanted to come back under the WST umbrella.
The World Snooker Championship runs from 20 April to 6 May and will have full coverage on Eurosport and the Eurosport app.
Tags: Ronnie OSullivan manifest message World Snooker Championship feel appreciated
