Ronnie O'Sullivan's darkness and doubt make his snooker perfection so compelling | Jonathan Liew


Six-times world champion is happier than he has ever been and perhaps the least we owe him is to accept him on his own terms

Perhaps it was fitting that it should end on a miscue. Maybe this is just the imagination playing trick shots but for a snooker player widely acclaimed as the greatest of all time, Ronnie O’Sullivan does seem to miscue quite a lot? Certainly more than you’d expect from your average preternatural, life-affirming, once-in-a-generation talent.

There was one against Mark Williams at the 2016 Masters that cost him the frame. One against Ali Carter at the Crucible in 2018 that cost him the match. In fact, there are compilations on YouTube: the horrible scrape of the cue, the ball skewing through the air, the horrified gasps of shock from the crowd.

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