Ronnie O’Sullivan's epic UK Championship snooker triumph was greatest British sporting achievement of year: Best of 2023

Updated 31/12/2023 at 13:15 GMT

Snooker GOAT Ronnie O'Sullivan produced another era-defining display to claim a record-extending eighth UK Championship with a 10-7 win over Ding Junhui at the York Barbican. In reeling off the final three frames, the seven-time world champion O'Sullivan exhibited a level of fearless play that should be celebrated for what it was: the greatest British sporting moment of 2023, writes Desmond Kane.

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The morning after Ronnie O’Sullivan lifted his first UK Championship snooker title at the age of 17 in 1993, he memorably appeared on This Morning TV show with Richard and Judy to discuss the landmark feat of becoming the youngest winner of a major ranking event courtesy of his unheralded 10-6 win against a fearsome Stephen Hendry at the Guild Hall in Preston.

Little did we know back than that the gilded Rocket Ronnie TV show would run for another 30 years, rivalling the historical pulling power of Punch and Judy in the UK for a sense of mass popularity, sporting slapstick, unique theatrical entertainment, organised chaos and cultural significance.

Since first punching his way to prominence as a raw 16-year-old rookie in qualifiers at the debatable Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool back in 1992 – the traditional seaside home of the classic puppet show – O’Sullivan has controlled the cue ball like a puppet on a string amid his rise to becoming the snooker GOAT over the past four decades.

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That’s the way to do it? Quite. And there’s no show without Punch.

It was perhaps fitting that the 47th UK Championship in December was the scene of his record 40th ranking title success in the sport as the three-time winner Ding Junhui was left punch-drunk by the final sting in the tail of a gripping 10-7 defeat.

O’Sullivan firmly grasped the nettle to become a trend-setting youngest and oldest wearer of the UK crown, his latest remarkable coronation staged just two days before he turned 48.

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'Greatest sporting achievement'

Producing a trademark sprint finish after Ding had levelled at 7-7 from 7-5 behind with a timely 104, O’Sullivan was utterly dominant with closing breaks of 100, 74 and 129 achieved amid a blizzard of breathtaking pots and serene positional sense. Ding added only 14 points in a clubbing conclusion.

For historical value, it was comparable to his frantic dash to a sixth world title in 2020 when he delivered another almost farcical punchline in the semi-finals at a Crucible Theatre deserted due to the pandemic.

TraIling old rival Mark Selby 16-14 and seemingly on the brink of certain defeat, he pieced together riotous knocks of 138, 71 and 64 to escape with a 17-16 win that scarcely seemed believable.

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In his element under intense pressure, he could not have carried off the UK trophy in a more majestic style this time if he had been carted out of the York Barbican in a sedan chair.

Was this the greatest British sporting achievement of the year?

Josh Kerr’s thrilling win over Jakob Ingebrigtsen at the 1500m at the World Athletics Championship in Budapest and Tom Aspinall’s rapid interim world heavyweight TKO victory against Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295 in New York would be obvious alternatives.

But in terms of longevity and gravity-defying feats, the moment of the year by a British sportsperson was surely brought to the masses by a vintage O’Sullivan revisiting a familiar old haunt.

For the style in which it was achieved, it is difficult to find anything superior to O’Sullivan in any sporting field when he is in the O zone, a sensation that is a naturally occurring potting phenomena comparable to the Northern Lights or the Old Faithful geyser.

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'Sweetness and light'

Old Faithful of the green baize is a geezer waiting to explode in dashing colour when the mood takes him.

He remains compulsive viewing above and beyond anything else in Blighty when he flicks the light switch as an engrossed public suddenly discover genius can be uncorked by one bloke clutching a snooker stick.

Of course, the genie has been out of the bottle for the timeless O’Sullivan at the UK Championship since his formative years, set against the unrelenting mist of time with his victory in 1993 followed by further riches in 1997, 2001, 2007, 2014, 2017, 2018 and 2023.

It has not been all sweetness and light for the sport's biggest draw at the UK Championship, the second most storied major ranking event on the circuit behind the World Championship.

Once upon a time in Essex, he was crestfallen after losing 9-8 to rabid Welsh potting wonder Cliff Wilson in the last 32 during his first trip to the event in 1992 – a match in which he outscored Wilson by 1000 points – and infamously quit a quarter-final match against Hendry in 2006 when he trailed 4-1.

He was later fined over £20,000 for the walk-out.

After winning for a fifth time with a memorable 10-9 triumph over Judd Trump in 2014 after his opponent had levelled at 9-9 from 9-4 behind, O’Sullivan withdrew from defending the UK title in 2015, citing insomnia and an inability to make a 20 break as the main issue.

Despite such travails on his travels between Preston, Bournemouth, York, Telford and back to York again, the UK Championship has been a suitable setting for one of the UK’s all-time sporting greats to display his attacking wares at a genuine preserve of potting folklore.

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'Realistic ambitions'

The fabled ‘People’s Champion’ Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins once recovered from trailing fierce foe Steve Davis 7-0 in a 16-15 win in 1983, 46-year-old Doug Mountjoy staged a glorious 16-12 victory over O’Sullivan’s fellow seven-time world champion Hendry in 1988, Hendry held off a resurgent Davis for a pivotal 16-5 triumph in 1990 and Jimmy ‘Whirlwind’ White became champion for the one and only time in 1992 with a 16-9 success against John Parrott.

At the age of 48, the six-time UK winner Davis even reached the final in 2005, but could not quite take the final step like O’Sullivan in a 10-6 defeat to the then 18-year-old Ding.

But the past informs the future, and the narrative and reputation of the tournament has been carried to new levels by O’Sullivan, who will again harbour realistic ambitions of similar record-extending eighth victories at the Masters in London and the World Championship in Sheffield in 2024.

His career has been heightened by a sense of making up for lost time blighted by well-documented battles off the table with his final win over Ding a microcosm of making good on early promise distracted by inner demons and the black dog of depression.

Four of O’Sullivan seven world titles have been clinched beyond the age of 36, four of his eight UK titles beyond the age of 38 and two of his seven Masters titles secured after he turned 40.

More than half of his golden trophy collection has been lifted in the second half of his 31-year career with four Champion of Champion trophies also wheeled off in the past decade.

In the year that was, O’Sullivan secured the Shanghai Masters for a fifth time in September with an 11-9 victory over world champion Luca Brecel, a figure who did for him at the Crucible in April with a 13-10 win from 10-6 behind in the last eight.

“I’m not really bothered about trophies,” he said in typically understated fashion in Shanghai. “I’ve sold quite a few of them – I don’t want any memorabilia left by the time I’m 70 or 80. I’m preparing for death.

"Part of that, is I don’t want no snooker stuff. Waistcoats, cues, it’s all going to go.”

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He is hardly dying a slow death on the old green baize as he burst to life in the death throes of 6-5 wins over Robert Milkins and Zhou Yuelong at the UK when he refused to collapse through sheer force of will as much as natural ability.

It was one of the great philosophers of yesteryear, probably Cicero or Tony Drago, who said: “Not for us alone are we born; our country, our friends, have a share in us.”

O’Sullivan is one of the few snooker players in history who receives artistic points by the public as well as the scoreboard. He performs his sport as much as he plays it.

Humouring his own high standards is as important as entertaining vast audiences, but while he talks a good game – never short of a memorable soundbite or three seemingly since time began – he plays a better one.

When he appears in the UK or overseas, people naturally gravitate towards him because he plays snooker properly as the fastest player on the planet, and in the spirit in which it was intended to be seen as a televised spectacle way back from its orgins in the 1960s.

He continues to play a young man's game laced with an infinitely better shot choice, but this visionary of attacking positional play in the most demanding cue sport of them all was bizarrely overlooked for a nomination for the Sports Personality of the Year award.

Not that he appears surprised by his omission in these parts.

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'The best ever'

“I feel like I get more support, and people like me better, here in Asia than they do in my own country,” O’Sullivan told reporters during a recent trip to Hong Kong to promote an exhibition event in March.

“So if you like me, it makes me feel good, so I come and play here more. In the UK, I don’t seem to get the same support as I do here.”

A telling moment in his final win over Ding arrived in the 10th frame when he was leading 5-4, but trailing 56-2. With three reds left up, he needed only one snooker.

But he quickly surveyed the table before deciding to concede, dispensing with an attempt to try for a solitary snooker that would disturb his natural fluency in the next frame.

"I think the game needs to be entertaining, at the end of the day," he told Eurosport. "Somebody getting snookers can be entertaining.

"But I think the bigger thing is just getting rid of really boring players that play horrible snooker, ugly snooker."

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Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. World No. 16 Jack ‘Jackpot’ Lisowski looks uncannily like O’Sullivan when he is on the shot, with superior technique and cue action only part of what inspires him about playing the game.

“I just try to play attacking snooker,” said Lisowski during a recent media conference in Hong Kong. “People have to want to watch it, and it has to entertain people – no one’s going to watch people taking 30 seconds for a shot.

“Ronnie is the best ever, so you’ve got to listen to what he says. He plays the game that way, and obviously he’s the most popular player, so it works.

“If everyone played like that, I think the sport would be much bigger.”

It is a level of expectation that enables O’Sullivan to entertain the masses, citing Lionel Messi, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods as examples of how elite sportsmen and women should express themselves.

“Whether that’s football, tennis or golf, I’d like to watch Messi, Federer and Woods,” he said. “If you’re going to play golf, try to play like Tiger. You might not be as good as him, but at least try to play in an exciting way.

"When people don’t play the game the right way, it’s not good for any sport. Everyone loves Woods and Federer because of their style.

“The more people that can play like that, the better it is for people to watch.”

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Like a vintage episode of The Two Ronnies over Christmas, revisiting old repeats of classic Ronnie O’Sullivan is something that the British public will never tire of watching.

He ends 2023 on 1,230 centuries and counting as the game's world No. 1 and the undisputed number one crowd-pleaser, a role in which he revels as much as Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali or Usain Bolt.

In elite sports, he is as good as it gets.

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