SNOOKER star Ronnie O’Sullivan has revealed the reason behind his unusual choice of footwear at the UK Championship.
The seven-time world champion clinched a first-round win over Anthony McGill on Tuesday.
After recovering from an early deficit, O’Sullivan won six consecutive frames on his way to victory at the Barbican.
However, some viewers were distracted by his footwear during the match.
Snooker players are typically required to wear black dress shoes when competing.
But instead O’Sullivan donned a pair of trainers.
When discussing his choice of shoes after the match, the Rocket admitted that an injury forced him into the change.
He told Eurosport: “I’ve got plantar fasciitis which is, the easiest way to explain it is, it’s like a bruise on your heel.
“So when you put your foot down, it’s really sore. Leather-soled shoes just absolutely batter my feet to pieces.
“So I’ve had to resort to getting some really big old soles on them, just to sort of give my foot a rest, basically.”
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Speaking about his overall performance against McGill earlier this week, O’Sullivan went on to add: “Tough start, obviously, 2-0 down [in] best-of-11 playing a very, very good player.
“So I felt like I had to get a grip of the game at some point, but you just never know, it could be 4-0 at the interval and going out of the tournament.
“So you go through all those emotions, but you just hope you get a chance to do something.
“It’s not easy and there’s a lot of pressure out there. It’s pressure because you want to do well in these tournaments.
“These are the big tournaments, you want to have a good run in them.
“You want to win one, two matches and get into the meat of the tournament.
“Then if you get beat then fair enough, but you don’t want to go out in the first round.”
