Ronnie O’Sullivan reveals his greatest shot in 30 years at World Snooker Championship – ‘As well as I could hit a ball’

The showmanship of the shot was an item of brilliance and beauty that was breathtaking in its execution, but also typical of O’Sullivan’s innate ability to seize the day.

Higgins had lost four straight frames from leading 6-5, but appeared destined to end the second session only 9-7 adrift on Friday afternoon when he embarked upon a timely break of 53 in the 16th frame.

The four-time world champion needed one more ball to leave his opponent requiring snookers, but somehow missed a frame-ball black off the spot.

Leading 58-7, O’Sullivan returned to the table chasing blacks with all three remaining reds to force a re-spot against the odds.

After a minor error by Higgins during a safety exchange, O’Sullivan was faced with a fiendishly tough red down the length of the table to the yellow pocket.

With pink and black close together at the business end of the table, potting the red was difficult enough, but his natural attacking instinct to screw the white off two cushions and land on the black was outlandish even by his own historic exhibits of green baize inspiration.

“It’s difficult to pick out a single shot, but I played a really good shot when I played John Higgins in the World Championships in the semi-finals last year,” O’Sullivan told Eurosport ahead of the 2023 World Snooker Championship, which is live on

“I was 43 points behind with two reds on and the pink and black were tied up. I potted the red into the yellow bag, screwed across the side cushion, the back cushion and over to the other side cushion, got onto the black and potted the black.

“That red for me was as well as I could hit a ball. I remember that shot pretty well. That was one of my best.”

As a cue ball calculation it sounds exhausting, but he would progress to win the frame on the re-spotted black for a momentum-shifting 10-6 overnight advantage before finalising the victory on the Saturday evening.

The 1994 Masters winner Alan McManus concurred with the shot selection as he analysed the audaciousness of a pot set against the significance of the occasion.

“The red and black are the two best shots I’ve seen back-to-back in a World Championship semi-final,” said McManus as he reflected upon a trademark moment of O’Sullivan genius at the Crucible.

If he was pushed on his personal top three of all time, O’Sullivan also singled out two pots he made during a 13-10 win over Neil Robertson in the 2012 World Championship quarter-finals that culminated in an unheralded fourth triumph, four years after his previous success in 2008.

“I remember I played Robertson once in the 2012 World Championships,” he said. “I remember potting a red with white bang on the back rail.

“The black was over the pocket and I had no safety, but I thought I could power this red in and get the white up and down the table to get it safe.

“I remember potting it and thinking: ‘oh, that was nice’. There was another shot I played against Robertson in the same match in the evening session where I potted a red, come round the back of the black and I’ve hit it so good.

“It made a great sound and it felt so good. I thought: ‘I couldn’t have hit that any better’. It gave me so much confidence and I suddenly thought: ‘I can do anything here’.

“I wasn’t fancied to win that tournament. I think I was 13th in the world at that time and hadn’t done much in two years. But I felt my game was good and I just found this form from nowhere and brought it to the match table.

“That is one of the most satisfying matches I’ve ever played in.”

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