Graeme Dott: Ronnie O'Sullivan and Stephen Hendry are not the greatest snooker players of all time
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Updated 10/05/2021 at 17:54 GMT
Ronnie O'Sullivan and Stephen Hendry might be widely regarded as the two greatest snooker players of all time, but Graeme Dott rates another player as the "best ever". Dott says O'Sullivan, Hendry and Steve Davis all possess an "aura" at the table and has spoken about how O'Sullivan called him while he was battling with depression.
Ronnie O'Sullivan
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Graeme Dott does not believe Ronnie O’Sullivan is the greatest snooker player ever – and doesn’t think Stephen Hendry tops the list either.
O’Sullivan and Hendry, with six and seven world titles respectively, are widely regarded as the two finest players of all time.
Dott, who turned professional in 1994, played against both of them as well as Steve Davis, who has also won the World Championship six times.
But while he believes the trio all have an "aura" at the table, he does not rank any of them as the best to have played the game. That title belongs to John Higgins.
"I think there’s not that many players that have got that but he’s definitely one of them,” Dott told This Sporting Life podcast of O’Sullivan’s aura.
"I think Steve Davis had it, an aura, even though when I played Steve Davis he probably wasn’t as good as what he was in his heyday, but he was still really, really good.
Hendry had an aura, the three of them were just different. I played John Higgins at the Crucible and I genuinely think John Higgins is the best ever, but he’s still not got an aura.
"I have no idea [why Higgins didn’t have an aura]. I couldn’t tell you, but those three definitely have and I don’t really think John has it although I honestly think he’s the best ever."
Dott, 43, won the World Championship once in 2006 but has battled with depression since.
He has revealed that O’Sullivan reached out to him to see how he was doing, having experienced similar challenges during his life.
"My wife Elaine made me go to the doctors and he said he thought I had chronic depression," said Dott.
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"I was on medication for a while and I went through a spell when I didn't win a match. I lost something like 17 matches in a row, it was a lot, it might even have been a full season when I didn't win a match. I can't even remember being at the tournaments. I would go, take one shirt, because I knew I was going to get beat, because I hadn't really practiced.
Funnily enough I actually got a phone call. Now I don't really speak to him at all - even now I don't really speak to him - but Ronnie phone me and was asking, because Ronnie has been through it as well.
"He was asking how I was feeling and what I was doing, and was saying it was the same as what he was doing.
“I thought it was really nice of him to phone, because he doesn't really speak to me, it's not as if we're mates. I thought it was nice of him to do that, and I looked at him a different way after that."
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