Exclusive: ‘Like playing Novak Djokovic at tennis’ – snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan compares himself to star

Ronnie O’Sullivan has told Eurosport’s The Breakdown podcast that he sees comparisons between how he defeats opponents and how tennis star Novak Djokovic does.

The 39-time ranking-event winner joined Stephen Hendry as the most prolific world champion in modern history with his 18-13 triumph over 2019 champion Judd Trump in what was a memorable 46th final at the famous Sheffield venue.

And O’Sullivan explained to Eurosport’s Greg Rutherford and Orla Chennaoui why his opponents must find facing him similar to how tennis players feel coming up against 21-time Grand Slam singles champion Djokovic.

“It’s not so much what you’re thinking about, I know once I hit a certain spot that he is not going to be able to stay with this,” O’Sullivan told the Eurosport podcast.

“He might go a frame, two frames, three frames, or whatever, but he is going to crumble. Not through any fault of his own: just his game, physically, mentally, it all just comes down.

“It all eventually falls apart for them, do you know what I mean? I just think ‘you can’t keep this up, I can’.

“So it might go 4-4, but then I’ll go 12-4 up. I just think that I’m going to keep playing like that continuously and you’ve had to put everything into that 4-4, but you can’t keep doing that.

“Some days you can try everything and it just doesn’t happen for you. I just look at it over a career and think ‘have I been on top most of the time?’

“I like to think that when I get in that gear and that zone, I become quite strong,” he continued. “They [his opponents] could not sustain it for longer periods of time so I was able to pull away.

“I play to quite a high level for a lot of the time, which is quite difficult. It is like playing Djokovic at tennis: you might win the first set, nick it 6-4, and you have to give it everything, but then he starts to get into you and you just see them thinking ‘I can’t deal with this fella’.

“It is a bit like that: you know you have got them, but it is a matter of time and you have to just go through the process. You can’t get too confident or cocky, you have just got to go through it.

“It can be tough. Snooker is a tough sport. You are sitting in your chair and a lot of it is out of your control. A lot of the time you are sitting in your chair and you have to process a lot of this dialogue in your head.”

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