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BySteve Sutcliffe

BBC Sport journalist

• Published39 minutes ago

It’s unlikely there’ll ever be another snooker player quite like Ronnie O’Sullivan.

The Englishman, who turned 50 on Friday, is widely regarded as the sport’s greatest-ever player, having broken almost every record in the game since turning professional in 1992.

‘The Rocket’ has an all-time record total of 23 Triple Crown titles – seven world crowns, eight Masters wins and eight victories at the UK Championship.

He has also compiled more century breaks and more maximum 147s than anyone else.

On top of that, he has a record 41 ranking titles to his name, five more than Stephen Hendry’s previous mark of 36.

And while O’Sullivan made an early exit from this year’s UK Championship, BBC Sport looks at 10 – and it could have been a lot more – memorable moments that have cemented his status as snooker’s biggest star as he reaches a personal half-century.

Youngest ranking event winner

Just over 32 years ago, O’Sullivan became the youngest winner of a ranking event when he captured the UK Championship title.

O’Sullivan defeated Alan McManus, Nigel Gilbert, Ken Doherty, Steve Davis and Darren Morgan before beating Stephen Hendry 10-6 in the 1993 final.

He was aged 17 years and 358 days and it set him on the trajectory to establish numerous other records over the years.

O’Sullivan records fastest 147

O’Sullivan has compiled 17 maximum breaks over his trophy-laden career but his first in a professional arena is arguably his most memorable and the quickest ever recorded.

It came during the first-round of the 1997 World Championship, with his nickname sticking after he registered a 147 in five minutes and eight seconds, against a stunned Mick Price.

His average shot time was just 8.8 seconds.

Maximum mischief

Now how about halting play when on eight points to ask if there is a prize for a maximum break?

That’s exactly what O’Sullivan did during his win over Mark King at the 2010 World Open.

And then having been told there was no specific prize for a 147, he had to be persuaded to pot the final black by referee Jan Verhaas.

In from the cold to defend world crown

Despite having played only one competitive match all season after taking a sabbatical from snooker, O’Sullivan remarkably won the 2013 World Championship.

Astonishingly he did not lose one session in the tournament and when he defeated Barry Hawkins 18-12 in the final he became only the third player after Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry to defend his title at the Crucible (since then, Mark Selby has become the fourth).

In that contest, O’Sullivan also became the first player to make six century breaks in a world final.

O’Sullivan reaches 1,000 centuries

Judd Trump, John Higgins and Neil Robertson all have more than 1,000 century breaks to their name but Ronnie O’Sullivan was first to reach that landmark and currently has the most with 1,313.

He achieved the feat in March 2019 on his way to victory over Australia’s Robertson in the Players Championship final.

‘The Rocket’ takes off

O’Sullivan set a new record for the fastest match in Crucible history in 2020, when it took him just 108 minutes to complete a 10-1 first-round demolition job on Thepchaiya Un-Nooh.

It shaved 41 minutes off the previous mark set when Shaun Murphy thrashed Luo Hong Hao 10-0 in the first round in 2019.

Reclaiming number one spot

O’Sullivan arrived at the Crucible in Sheffield in 2022 having returned to the top of the world rankings for the first time since 2019.

And it was not the first time. He regained top spot in the world in March 2019 after a nine-year wait at the age of 43 with his Tour Championship success over Neil Robertson.

That triumph was also notable at the time as it enabled him to match Hendry’s then record of 36 ranking titles.

Crucible seventh heaven as O’Sullivan equals Hendry’s mark

Having won his sixth Crucible crown in 2020, it only seemed a matter of time before O’Sullivan reached his seventh.

And having equalled Davis’ record of 30 appearances at the famous Sheffield venue in his first-round match against David Gilbert in 2022, he went on to claim an 18-13 win over Judd Trump in to equal Hendry’s record for titles in the modern era.

Aged 46 at the time, he was the oldest world champion in Crucible history, eclipsing Ray Reardon, who won his sixth title aged 45 in 1978.

Oldest and youngest UK winner

O’Sullivan became the oldest UK champion with a 10-7 victory over Ding Junhui as he claimed a record-extending eighth title in York.

The Englishman’s triumph arrived just two days before his 48th birthday and three decades on from being the youngest player to win the UK Championship, aged 17.

He also remarkably holds the same record at the Masters, which he first won in 1995, with his eighth success coming in January 2024.

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Two 147s in semi-final win over Wakelin

Imagine achieving snooker perfection, not once but twice in a best-of-11 encounter. That is exactly what O’Sullivan accomplished in his 6-3 victory over Chris Wakelin in their Saudi Arabia Masters semi-final earlier this season.

In the process, he became oldest player to make a maximum as he delivered a stunning exhibition of cue-ball control.

By

Simon Stone

Manchester United reporter at Old Trafford

• Published7 hours ago
• 581 Comments

“Frustrated, angry, that is it.”

Ruben Amorim was summing up his own feelings in his first answer at the post-match news conference following Manchester United’s 1-1 draw with West Ham on Thursday.

But he could have been talking for the whole United fanbase, including those who booed his team off at Old Trafford.

He certainly was talking for former captain Roy Keane, who used similar terminology to sum up his feelings about the current United side.

“The word everyone will be using is frustration,” Keane told Sky Sports at the end of another game United led with a significant leap up the Premier League looming, only to concede late and end up with a point.

“I wouldn’t trust or believe in this team. There are more goals [in them] but defensively and in midfield there are still huge question marks.”

Amorim sounded unusually agitated as he delivered his words, although he insisted he was calm.

He said there would be no repeat of his tirade after the home defeat by Brighton in January, when he cut his hand and broke a TV in the dressing room.

Instead, he will wait and address the situation at Carrington on Friday, believing it is counter-productive to speak to his players when emotions around a game are still high.

Amorim knew what had gone wrong, though.

He knew why his side had failed to hold the second-half lead given to them by Diogo Dalot.

And he knew why Soungoutou Magassa responded quickest to Noussair Mazraoui’s goal-line clearance from Jarrod Bowen’s flicked header at a corner to score his first goal in English football in the 83rd minute.

West Ham boss Nuno Espirito Santo said it was a “deserved” equaliser for the team third-bottom of the table, with just two points on the road since their only away win, at Nottingham Forest, in August.

“It happened with a long ball,” said Amorim. “They win the second ball against three guys.

“Second balls sometimes are tactical things. We try to adjust with the players we have.

“In the final minutes, the ball was far from the opponent. We cannot let a team that is so much taller than us have a corner.”

The problem for Amorim is that a pattern is developing.

Keane highlighted it, saying: “One minute, you think they are making progress, they could move fifth, but they don’t get the job done. They look frightened to get the job done.”

At Nottingham Forest on 1 November, victory would have taken United second. They were leading and ended up needing an equaliser to draw. A week later, they had the same aim at Tottenham and the outcome was identical, with the equaliser coming in stoppage time.

Immediately after the international break, a Champions League spot was on offer if victory could be achieved against Everton. They lost, at home, against 10 men.

Now this, seven minutes from fifth place. They are back in eighth, in the middle of 11 clubs separated by four points. No-one knows if they are good, average or poor.

The consensus is United have made progress, although from last season’s 15th place, with more than £200m spent, that would not be so hard.

In October, United won three games in a row and Amorim was manager of the month. Now their run is one win in five. The worry is they are going backwards.

Amorim rejects that notion.

“It’s not going backwards,” he said.

“We had some moments. That can happen.

“You were talking about when we had the run and [saying that] we were perfect, when we were not. We are inconsistent.

“If you look at the goal, after 83 minutes there is a long ball and we have everything under control. We must do better.”

United go to bottom club Wolves on Monday. Yet again, they will play the final game of a Premier League match round, and yet again there will be a target to aim for, although which each failure it is getting lower.

They surely will not fail again against the team who have beaten no-one?

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