'You have to be a robot' - Ronnie O'Sullivan tells snooker star to 'take game apart' at World Championship
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Updated 20/04/2022 at 21:19 GMT
The hugely talented Jack Lisowski has everything he needs to be successful in the sport but may need to break his game down to become more "robotic" if he is to find the consistency to triumph on the biggest stage, according to Eurosport expert and snooker legend, Ronnie O'Sullivan. The Rocket has provided his fellow Englishman with some advice during their World Championship campaigns.
'You have to be a robot' - O'Sullivan tells star to 'take game apart'
Ronnie O'Sullivan has given a fellow snooker star some advice at the World Championship, and that is to take his game apart to prevent so many mistakes.
The Rocket was asked in the Eurosport studio about what he would recommend the hugely talented Jack Lisowski do to iron out the lapses in his play at the Crucible.
The 30-year-old battled past Matthew Stevens 10-8 on Wednesday to reach the second round, but some of his swashbuckling breaks were interspersed with some sloppy errors.
While the six-time world champion admitted that he suffered from the same inconsistency early in his career, O'Sullivan suggested that Lisowski break his game down and make his technique a lot more robotic to improve his consistency around the table.
"It might sound drastic, but I would literally take my game apart," O'Sullivan told Eurosport.
"I would change my style. I would become more robotic. It might feel a bit alien to him, but I just think nowadays you have to be a robot.
"It is no good looking good if you make elementary mistakes. I was a bit like that up until about 1997 and I decided to deconstruct my game because I knew it wasn't good enough to win the world title.
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"I made too many mistakes, so I became much more robotic and much more methodical. I don't actually play like that, but I felt like I had to.
"It is to slow everything down and to cut out the mistakes and become much more consistent. So you will lose the flashy pots and the white ball fizzing around the table because you are just keeping everything much more tight and compact.
"If you want to win the World Championship, you need to be a little bit like that. You look at someone like Luca Brecel: great talent, but he has this huge bridge hand and the cue is looping around.
"When it is going well it is great, but if it doesn't go well ... you just have to have one bad session here and you are going home.
"If you want to model yourself on anyone, you would probably go Neil Robertson, Ding Junhui, John Higgins, Mark Williams.
"You see his [Williams] technique from 15 years ago compared to what it is now, he is so much more compact so he has got a much tighter cue-ball control. Over the distance, he will have a lot less lapses because of it."
Fellow snooker legend Jimmy White added: "He makes it look easy, but all these silly mistakes will come in. Either he will miss an easy ball or he will miss a position shot. He doesn't have any pre-shot routine.
"If I was in his corner when he goes back, I would watch what he does right and what he does wrong and learn from it. I don't think he applies himself right, myself."
Lisowski will next take on who he regards as the "best player in the world", Neil Robertson, in the second round in Sheffield.
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