'I don't have to win, you know' – O'Sullivan on his future in snooker

Ronnie O’Sullivan has said he will dedicate the next 12 months to working hard on his game in a bid to extend his career at the top level.

O’ Sullivan has had some stellar results in the 2023/24 season, winning the UK Championship and Masters to add to his tally of Triple Crown events.

But despite the wins, the world No. 1 has been unhappy with the state of his game.

He has begun working closely with Steve Peters once again, and the revered Sports Psychiatrist will be in his corner at the World Championship and for the next 12 months.

“Steve’s gonna be there a lot,” O’Sullivan told Eurosport about his plans for a shot at an eighth World Championship, which gets underway on Eurosport and discovery+ at the weekend. “I told him, whenever you can make it, that’d be great.

“I’ve been speaking to him a lot on the phone recently.”

O’Sullivan is not happy with the state of his game, but has committed to working hard to feel comfortable at the table.

He continued: “I’m in that situation at the moment where I’ve just got to get myself in a frame of mind for maybe the next however long. I’ve given myself a year to the end of next year’s World Championship to work with Steve and hope, you know, to get back to where I feel it’s acceptable.

“I could do another year like this, I’ll commit to that playing how I’ve been playing and the struggles and what we all want to call it – the yips or the snatches, whatever you want to call it.

“I don’t consider that snooker, I’m butchering balls.

“Everyone’s got their own problems. But that ain’t fun for me.

“I’ve got two options. Like Steve said, you can learn to live with it. You can learn to live with anything and be happy or choose to be miserable.

“The task I’m gonna have to set myself is if I can’t get my game in the right place, and I really don’t wanna stop then I’ve got to get round my head round acceptance. Learn to live with it, play it.

“But if I can’t, then maybe do 18 months, two years, exhibitions, go see all the fans and really just go down that testimonial route and then hang my cue up. Would be, like 51, 52. No big deal.”

Should O’Sullivan triumph at the Crucible, it would give him an eighth world crown to go with his eight Masters and eight UK Championships.

Such an achievement would not be the trigger to consider retirement.

“I’ll only retire if I think I’m not playing well enough for long enough, which has been going on a while now,” he said. “That’s obviously something that distresses me enough to think. ‘I don’t want to keep doing that.’ But like I said, if I can learn to live with it.”

The lifestyle snooker has handed O’Sullivan is one of the reasons for him to keep playing.

He said: “I don’t have to win, you know, I just like travelling, I like the people I meet, I like the people I work with; I have a great time with all my sponsors and stuff like that. That’d be hard to give up.

“It’d be hard to give up all the exhibitions I do, the places I get to travel to. That’s why I don’t want to give it up.

“But you’ve got to enjoy the playing, you know, and it’s been a tough year.

“If I can get back to enjoy the playing, then I’ll be the happiest man in the world.”

Despite being unhappy with his game, O’Sullivan is pleased with how he has approached the mental side of snooker.

“I think I’ve mentally been really strong to just keep going at it,” he said. “But I thought I’ve won five tournaments, got to the finaI and I’m not enjoying it.

“I want to win and enjoy it. So that’s why I said to Steve, ‘come on, I need to work this out now.’

“I need to work something out where I can feel in a better place with it all.”

Provided his game is in shape, O’Sullivan does not feel this is his last shot at an eighth world crown.

“I think there are plenty of opportunities to win that World Championship,” the 48-year-old said. “It’s just if I’m not enjoying it. If I’m enjoying it and like I said when I’m playing snooker, I feel like my mind is young around that table.

“I think like a youngster, so age is not important.

“I feel agile. As long as I keep feeling that young when I’m out there, then it doesn’t matter if I’m 60 if I feel like I’m still performing well out there. And I’m making, you know, my opponent look sluggish to me. I’m like, ‘cool, we can still do this.'”