As is true of the world around us, snooker’s story has turned onto a darker page in the last 18 months and those of us hoping for a harmonious future might prove disappointed.
Last summer, two Chinese players received life bans for match-fixing, many more punished for their involvement, while at the beginning of this season some of the biggest names locked horns with the sport’s governing body as they sought to play a lucrative exhibition in China in a direct clash with a scheduled Home Nations event.
In March, Saudi Arabia finally hosted its first tournament, with a second planned for later this year, leaving many fans cold at the realisation their sport is now being used for sportswashing by an autocratic regime with an appalling human rights record. Moreover, in the last few days it was announced that the Riyadh Season has become an official partner of the World Snooker Championship, suggesting Sheffield’s days as host to the sport's Blue Riband event may be numbered.
It could still get worse. Rumours of a breakaway tour in China persist and put WST and its hardline approach to managing the tour’s players in a tricky spot. Never mind the Winter of Discontent, this summer could turn out pretty bleak.
And in the midst of all that remains one man, in many ways still carrying the sport on his shoulders as he has done for 30 years, still entertaining, still dominating, and still very much the one to beat. That man, of course, is RONNIE O’SULLIVAN and he can cement his legacy by claiming a record-breaking eighth world title at the Crucible.
O’Sullivan needs no introduction to snooker fans, but I’ll try anyway. The numbers now read 41 rankings titles, 23 Triple Crown wins, a record eight in the Masters, eight at the UK Championship, also a record, and seven World Championships, which means he stands level with the great Stephen Hendry.
Make no mistake, he’ll be desperate to go all the way again, and he has become such a brilliant Crucible player. As people like John Higgins and Mark Selby have shown year after year, as important as your best sessions are here, it’s those bad ones where you’re able to limit the damage to 5-3 against, or even get out 4-4, that could prove the difference come the first weekend in May.
O’Sullivan wasn’t always good at that – he could implode with the best of them – but rarely nowadays. And then when it’s role reversed, there is nobody better at reeling off frames quickly and winning sessions easily. Selby didn’t kill off Mark Allen as quickly as he should’ve in their semi-final last year and paid the price with a sluggish start to the final. O’Sullivan rarely makes that mistake.
And with that, he tends to ensure he is better placed than most to fire at the back end of the tournament, when others are wilting and struggle to keep producing the goods. In many ways, O’Sullivan has now become the perfect Crucible player, probably the perfect snooker player full stop.
It’s the freshness angle that is probably the only plausible negative to throw at O’Sullivan this year. Has he done too much already this season? I’m a big believer in peaking at the right time for this tournament, one which demands so much of players, but I really don’t think O’Sullivan’s recent workload is a cause for concern.
He began the New Year by winning the Masters and World Grand Prix, enjoyed a break before winning a three-day event in Saudi Arabia in early March, before playing really well in the last event before Sheffield, the Tour Championship. Sandwiched between those were early exits at the Players Championship and the World Open, but that might be no bad thing in terms of his workload for the big one and I don’t think he will have been especially disappointed on either count.
To then enjoy a good tune-up for Sheffield with a run to the final of the Tour Championship in fact looks close to perfect preparation to me, with his game appearing in very good order until Williams produced a stunning finish in the evening session. Crucially, he looked to have enjoyed himself there, an entertaining match with an old sparring partner he respects and admires so much.
So what of those rivals?
The first port of call is Trump, on a collision course with O’Sullivan in the last four having enjoyed another very productive campaign, five titles in all, including a couple of Home Nations events which he has made a habit of winning in recent times.
Trump has become close to the ultimate tournament player. He has mastered the art of peaking at the business end of events, rather than firing on all cylinders early and then coming unstuck further down the line. It might mean he can be vulnerable in those early rounds, but he has become such a tough not to crack on the final weekend.
The biggest improvement in his game has been in his willingness to scrap and fight for matches he would’ve lost a few years back, and I’m adamant that he’s one of the best pressure players we’ve ever had in the game.
Hossein Vafaei in the first round will worry some, but it’s not a tie I’d be overly concerned about and were it not for the presence of O’Sullivan in the same half of the draw, I’d be much sweeter on Trump’s chances. In fairness, O’Sullivan hasn’t always dominated Trump to the degree we’ve seen of late, and I don’t believe it’s a match either man will be running scared of.
One negative for Trump backers is the prospect of meeting Tour Championship hero Williams in the quarter-finals.
It’s a match Trump would start favourite for, but that was also the case at the Tour Championship when Williams won 10-4, though, in truth, neither man played anywhere near their best on that occasion. For the record, Trump dominates the head-to-head 21-10, and prevailed 17-16 in their epic semi-final here in 2022.
Williams is sure to have his supporters in the outright market at 14/1. On that Tour Championship triumph, where he beat O’Sullivan, Trump and Allen – the three best players of the season – he clearly makes appeal, but as I’ve already alluded to, Tour Championship winners historically have a poor record at the Crucible. That will change one day, I’m sure, but it’s hard not to be swayed by that trend.
The Welsh veteran has won two tournaments already this season, even more pleasing after a couple of near misses – including against Trump in the 2023 Masters final – the previous season, but I do just wonder if he has the legs for this tournament nowadays.
It might seem like an odd thing to say about a three-time world champion whose style would appear effortless when watching him float around the table. Nick Metcalfe described Williams as ‘snooker meets art’ on Sporting Life’s World Championship preview show, and it’s hard to disagree, but this tournament is so much more demanding than people realise, and I have a few concerns about Williams were he to go really deep.
Ding Junhui is another high-profile name in this section, and he once again demonstrated his liking for the big stage when reaching another UK Championship final in December, losing to O’Sullivan who has beaten the Chinese star in three significant matches already this term.
He would’ve liked to have been kept away from O’Sullivan, I’m sure, but his opening match against Jack Lisowski looks a horror draw, too. Lisowski waltzed through qualifying and with this match sure to be played on his terms, he is a very dangerous opponent for the 2016 runner-up.
I can’t move on from this half of the draw without mentioning Gary Wilson, up against Stuart Bingham first, with the winner due to meet either Ding or Lisowski. I’d strongly fancy Wilson to get past former champion, Bingham, and further down the line, don’t be surprised were he to prove the toughest match O’Sullivan has in this half of the draw.
A semi-finalist here in 2019, Wilson’s game has continued to trend upwards since and he has won three titles in the last 18 months, including the Scottish Open and the Welsh Open this season. In a campaign which has featured so few winners, dominated by the best two players in the sport, Wilson has been one of the few other shining lights.
He did well at the Tour Championship, beating Selby and Zhang Anda before losing to O’Sullivan in the last four in a match where he can probably count himself a trifle unlucky.
He’s only beaten O’Sullivan once in six meetings now, so his task is clear for all to see, but he’s probably not a 33/1 shot on this season’s form alone, especially when you consider that he’s been winning titles while many shorter than him in the betting have no form and no silverware to their names this season.
And that takes us nicely on to the top half of the draw, of course headed by defending champion Brecel who is without a tournament win this term, but hasn’t shown up as badly as some might think.
His performances in ranking events have been largely poor, though he shaped with much more promise at the Welsh Open when reaching the last eight, and has made two finals, in the valuable Shanghai Masters and World Masters of Snooker, only a rampant O’Sullivan stopping him in his tracks on both occasions.
Let’s not forget that Brecel had never previously won a match at the Crucible until last year and very nearly lost in the first round to Ricky Walden, so it’s pretty clear what he is capable of if getting on a roll and finding his groove.
First-time Crucible winners have always found that next season tough, so I don’t think anyone is surprised that Brecel needed time to come back down to earth again, but his form appears to be going the right way and I’d fancy him to make light work of David Gilbert in his first match.
Shortest in the betting from the top half is Selby, easy to back in the last few days at 9/1 but always a man to be feared at the Crucible, four times a champion and runner-up to Brecel only 12 months ago.
The biggest concern for Selby supporters, and there are a few, is that following another poor showing at the Tour Championship, he talked about retirement were his game not to improve dramatically. Snooker is a hard sport at the best of times and all players go through tough periods, but it wasn’t a good sign to hear one of the market leaders speaking in a way to which we are not accustomed.
But Selby’s campaign has been a real struggle. He played brilliantly to whitewash O’Sullivan at the Players Championship but couldn’t build on that, and apart from finishing runner-up at the British Open way back at the start of the season, it has been a long story of frustration for the four-time world champion.
Selby is very often at the top of my list when it comes to this tournament because when at his best, I don’t believe there have been many better at the Crucible in multi-session matches. Sadly, on what we’ve seen of him recently, his best snooker is a long way away.
All that said, it still wouldn’t be the greatest surprise to see him suddenly spring into life in a venue that holds so many happy memories, but like Higgins, another man who has won snooker’s biggest prize on four occasions, the questions he has to answer are just too big for me to overlook.
Higgins has actually played some very good snooker for most of the season, six semi-finals confirm that, but he continues to look especially vulnerable in close matchers – quite the opposite from just a few years ago – and he, too, has hinted at retirement at the conclusion of this tournament.
I, like many others, dearly hope that is not the case, but the Scot has been forced to swallow too many tough defeats in recent times to be able to brush off, and at this age, those scars begin to take their toll.
At the bottom of this half, it’s hardly surprising to see money come for Allen who has been one of that handful of players to put it up to O’Sullivan and Trump this season.
As with so many of the 32 names lining up at the Crucible, Murphy comes with question marks, but his price takes that into account, while O’Sullivan’s price, though admittedly short, has been earned through a campaign of brilliance and complete domination.
If this World Championship runs to form, O’Sullivan will once again prove irresistible, making it 8-8-8.
It would be his crowning moment, if not the final then the most significant flourish from a man who has carried the sport on his shoulders and taken it to places nobody else could've.
He might not be certain its future lies in Sheffield, but O'Sullivan has always been a man of contradictions and, on May 6, he can ensure that the Crucible will forever be the place where the greatest player this game has ever produced made history.
Preview published at 1325 BST on 18/04/24