RONNIE O’SULLIVAN knows the price it would take him to join any breakaway snooker tour – £600MILLION!
The Rocket, 48, is locked at 4-4 frames apiece with Stuart Bingham after the first of three sessions of their quarter-final clash at the World Snooker Championship.
The world No.1 plans to remain on the World Snooker Tour next season – especially as he has signed lucrative terms with Saudi snooker chiefs – and will not be part of any rival circuit right now.
It follows news that Jack Lisowski intends to stay with the WST even though “big numbers are being thrown around” by outside investors.
Yet O’Sullivan’s intentions would dramatically change IF the money on offer rivalled anywhere near the eye-watering sums that someone like Masters-winning golfer Jon Rahm has received.
The Spaniard, 29, was recruited by Saudi-based LIV Tour backers to the tune of a whopping £476million.
O’Sullivan said: “I know what I want from the sport, I know what I’m prepared to do and I know what I need in return from it.
“As long as I keep getting that I don’t mind playing. Everyone has to make that decision up for themselves.
“Everyone’s in different positions in the game, stages of their careers. One might work better for one person.
“Working more or less could work for others. It’s not always about money. It’s about the time as well.
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“I’d love to see a LIV-style breakaway. I’d love to get a phone call which says: ‘Do you want £600million to play for three years?’ I’d love that phone call. Wouldn’t you?
“Would you turn that down? If someone said ‘come and work for my radio station for three years and we’d pay you £600million’ would you turn it down..?”
O’Sullivan may have knocked in a 116 break but overall, he had a disappointing and frustrating afternoon session against Ball Run.
There was one missed red in frame seven – described by seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry as “unforgivable” – where the emotions boiled over and he whacked the table with his cue.
Bingham, 47, led 3-1 at the mid-session interval following breaks of 55, 75, 51 and 79.
RONNIE O'SULLIVAN has enjoyed an incredible career as snooker's biggest star.
But the Rocket’s turbulent past has led to struggles with mental health, addiction and yo-yo weight battles.
O’Sullivan’s parents ran a chain of sex shops in Essex and his father was jailed for 20 years for murder when he was just 16.
In the Amazon documentary The Edge of Everything, the snooker icon admitted his dad going to prison had a profound effect.
He said: “I didn’t want to blame everything on that situation with my dad, but I was thinking, ‘I’d rather not have the snooker. just a normal family’. Because… It was a dream, but looking back, it was a nightmare.”
Just a year later, Ronnie became the youngest ever UK Champion, seven days before his 18th birthday. Then at 19, in 1994, he became the youngest Masters champion.
But he has already begun to binge on drink and drugs and, when his mum was sent to prison for tax evasion, in 1996, he struggled to cope with looking after his eight–year-old sister alone.
En route to winning the 2015 World title, Bingham beat O’Sullivan 13-9 in the quarter-finals and he admitted he watched the final session of that tie on Monday – and it sent him to SLEEP!
Over on table one, Kyren Wilson finished a high-scoring session 5-3 up over John Higgins.
The Warrior led 4-0 and 5-1 but then the Scotsman knocked in successive breaks of 73 and 102 to close the gap.
Higgins’s mum was celebrating her birthday on Tuesday, the day after her son had produced the mother of all clearances to eliminate Mark Allen from the second round.
‘Do you want £600million to play for three years?’ I’d love that phone call. Wouldn’t you?
Ronnie O'Sullivan
The four-time world champion sobbed in his Crucible dressing room as he won the final frame with a 71, something he described as the “best” clearance of his career.
Higgins, who opened up that break with a brave double on the red, said: “That should do wonders for my confidence.
“To know that I can do it at the hardest place to play snooker.
“I really need to improve. But I’m in there fighting. I’m letting the other guy try and win it.
“This is what this tournament and venue does to you. It’s incredible. It takes it out of you but also it gives you some incredible moments.”
