Jimmy White confident 'jagged' Ronnie O’Sullivan will be ‘up and ready to try to win the UK Championship’

Updated 19/10/2022 at 19:08 GMT

Ronnie O’Sullivan will be “up and ready to try and win the UK Championship” according to Eurosport pundit Jimmy White. O’Sullivan was stunned by David Grace in the second round of the Northern Ireland Open despite being 2-0 up. White feels the seven-time world champion may have been “tired” following his triumph at the Hong Kong Masters earlier this month.

‘Ronnie O’Sullivan will be up and ready to try and win the UK Championship’ - White

Jimmy White is confident Ronnie O’Sullivan will be ‘up and ready to try and win the UK Championship’ after his shock defeat to David Grace.

O’Sullivan was 2-0 up against Grace in the second round of the Northern Ireland Open, but lost the match 4-3 as he played some erratic shots.

The seven-time world champion revealed to Eurosport he is writing a new book and that snooker is “not the main priority” of his life at the moment.

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“He says he’s got other things going on, he gave us a little taster but didn’t really tell us what it was,” White said in the Eurosport studio.

“It looked to me that in his game, from when he came back from Hong Kong he didn’t really play much since then, so he may have been a bit tired, a bit jagged.

“But make no mistake, he will be up and ready to try to win the UK Championship.”

Exclusive: O’Sullivan reveals he’s writing a new book

The UK Championship, which takes place from November 12 to November 20, is the next ranking tournament on the calendar and it will be live on Eurosport and discovery+.

As for Grace, he will play Tian Pengfei in the next round on Thursday after one of the biggest wins of his career.

Alan McManus was glad to see the 37-year-old finally be rewarded for the effort he puts in off the table.

“His first five years as a pro he had scant reward for a lot of the hard graft,” said McManus. “I know the big fella, he puts the effort in up at Leeds.

“It’s good to see guys like that getting rewarded because the effort he puts in, he loves the game, he’s a historian of it, he probably dreams about it. It’s a good story.”

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Stream the Northern Ireland Open live on discovery+ and eurosport.co.uk.

Northern Ireland Open