PROLIFIC Ronnie O’Sullivan quipped that he gets satisfaction from “spoiling the party” and “ruining the CVs” of his rivals.
The Rocket raced into a ninth UK Championship final – and a 62nd career ranking tournament final – with a 6-2 semi-final battering of Hossein Vafaei.
It his 30 years since he lifted this Triple Crown event, for the first time, in Preston aged 17 years old.
After progressing to today’s finale in York – the winner gets £250,000 – O’Sullivan, 47, sat in a BBC studio alongside Stephen Hendry and Steve Davis, two of the men he beat in that 1993 tournament.
The world No.1 then started to open up on one of the reasons why he has not yet packed away his cue.
Seven-time champion O’Sullivan, who had a 113 break, joked: “I’m just hanging around so people don’t get as good as a career as me.
“I think, I can beat Mark Selby here, Judd Trump there. That’s a UK you ain’t got. That’s a Masters you ain’t got.
“I’m just here to spoil their party, ruin their CV! You know, I don’t care about anything else.
“Can I just make you look back at your career and think: Ah, I could have had another four or five titles if it wasn’t for him?
“The more the thing is just stopping other people from winning the big tournaments.
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“Stop Selby winning a few and Judd winning a few and Ding Junhui and Neil Robertson winning a few.
“Just ruin their careers a bit that would be great. I’ve done all right, I’ve got a good CV. Sometimes that’s just a nice motivation to play.
“I just want to play well. The worst thing for me is going out there and embarrassing myself.
“I don’t mind losing. I don’t want to embarrass myself and miss balls. That’s a fear or stage fright.”
Iranian Vafaei, who hit a 112 break in frame three, had several chances across the six frames that O’Sullivan won to make it a tighter occasion.
The Prince of Persia, 29, said: “In front of my hero, I don’t have that heart like I have against other people. I don’t know what is wrong with me.
“All of a sudden, my body felt so heavy. I felt completely different. My game changed, my eyes got heavier.
“It was like all of a sudden somebody threw cold water on me. I’m sorry I have let people down.”
Meanwhile, Mark Allen has claimed that he had a “positive” four-and-a-half hour meeting last Tuesday with seven World Snooker Tour chiefs to thrash out recent disagreements and contractual issues.
But the “frustrated” Pistol says “only me” of the top-16 players have been willing to hold a meeting with baize bigwigs at the UKs.
