Ronnie O'Sullivan reveals person who left him struggling to play snooker – 'I couldn't pot a ball'

ByEurosport

Published 13/05/2023 at 09:18 GMT

Ronnie O'Sullivan has won 39 ranking titles, including a record-equalling seven World Championships, during a golden 31-year professional career, but admits he feels the most pressure when his father Ronnie Sr watches him play. His dad was released from prison for murder after 18 years in 2010. "He came to The Masters," said O'Sullivan. "There was 2,000 people there and I couldn't pot a ball."

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Ronnie O'Sullivan has compared his larger-than-life father to Del Boy from iconic British sitcom Only Fools and Horses, but admits his presence has always added pressure to his play.

The seven-time world champion was forced to visit his dad in prison every month after Ronnie Snr was jailed for murder in 1992, the same year his son turned professional, before he was released in 2010.

Despite loving spending time with his father, the snooker GOAT admits the dynamic did not help him focus on potting balls during the heat of competition.

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"He was my dad, and we're a close family you know," said O'Sullivan, speaking on The Late Late Show in Ireland to promote his new autobiography Unbreakable. "They were the best two hours of my month. He made me laugh, he was funny and he made me giggle. I loved my dad and I loved his company.

"We had a problem when I was younger. If I lost, he would always tell me 'you should've done this or that'. I really couldn't play when he was watching me.

"Then when I was 11, I started to win and he was smart enough to go 'he plays better. He wins when I'm not there'.

"When he came out of prison, he came to The Masters. There was 2,000 people there and I couldn't pot a ball. I could feel his energy."

"He was a massive part of my life. My rock, my mentor. Big character. Del Boy and I was Rodney," said O'Sullivan, who feels he lost at least seven years of his 31-year career to drink and drugs addiction.

"Obviously, he got done for murdering someone when I was 15. He went to jail for 20 years. That rocked me.

"I found that quite difficult to deal with and I lost my way a little bit."

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O'Sullivan's personal problems mounted when his mum Maria was sentenced to 12 months in prison for tax evasion in 1996, a year after he lifted the first of his record seven Masters titles in London.

"Three years later she went away for tax evasion, and that's when I kind of went off the rails a little bit," he said. "I started drinking and partying and all that sort of stuff.

"With my parents, I always felt accountable to them to not misbehave because I didn't want to disappoint them.

"And when my mum went away, there was no-one around to keep me in check. Them six months I went off the rails and I didn't quite recover for about seven or eight years.

"I just kind of went wild really."