Ronnie O’Sullivan’s most iconic World Championship moment selected by Jimmy White – ‘He showed his emotions’

Jimmy White is backing Ronnie O’Sullivan to go all the way in this year’s World Championship, but thinks John Higgins and Mark Selby represent big obstacles to an eighth title.

In a Q&A session, White and Eurosport presenter Radzi Chinyanganya also reflected on the stand-out moments from O’Sullivan’s career.

“Make no mistake, his first game [v Pang Junxu] was a bit a bit sticky,” White said. “His second game was against Hossein [Vafaei] with all that pre-match nonsense; he took no notice of that and it was down to business.

“He’s got a big task to win it this year because you’ve got John Higgins playing in top form and Mark Selby.

“No disrespect to the other guys, he’s got to beat Luca [Brecel] and maybe Mark Allen. On the other side, you would think that John Higgins or Mark Selby would come through.

“For Ronnie to win his eighth, he’s got to come through in top form, but he is doing that, he’s fit, so I don’t see why not.”

The duo also discussed O’Sullivan’s most iconic moment at the Crucible, and lauded his achievement of equalling Stephen Hendry’s record of seven titles after beating Judd Trump in last year’s final.

“He showed his emotions, he showed how hard it was and he also had a camera crew filming a documentary all through those 17 days, so the most iconic moment for me was equalling Hendry’s record,” White explained.

“Just to add to that, he was wearing a microphone while he was out there. He knew that for that story to be complete, he had to get the seven,” Chinyanganya added.

Chinyanganya also waxed lyrically about O’Sullivan’s fastest-ever maximum break of 147 and went as far to say it matches the best achievement in any sport.

The Rocket was able to reach the score in five minutes and eight seconds in the first round of the 1997 World Championship.

“Best break has to be the fastest 147, it’ll never be equalled, it’ll never be bettered,” said Chinyanganya.

“I’ll put it out there, I don’t only think it’s the best break of all time, I would argue it’s one of the greatest-ever moments in sport, it’s just historic.”

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