Ronnie O’Sullivan reacts to brilliant win after being ‘scared to play’ at ‘daunting’ Crucible

Ronnie O’Sullivan hit his stride and surged into the second round of the World Snooker Championship thanks to a 10-4 win over Ali Carter, despite being ‘scared to play’ at the Crucible.

The first session on Tuesday was a struggle for both players and there was little between them as it finished 5-4 in the Rocket’s favour.

O’Sullivan had not played competitively since January and Carter was dealing with a neck problem, so there were reasons for both being a long way from their best.

Overnight the situation changed for one but not the other as the Captain continued to be well below par, while the seven-time world champion found his rhythm.

Breaks of 59, 117, 74 and 123 from O’Sullivan saw him go to the mid-session interval 9-4 ahead in no time at all and one frame from victory.

The 49-year-old secured that frame as soon as he returned from the interval to make a break of 131 and picked up a heavy win over his old rival to progress to the last 16.

Carter’s winless run at the Crucible continues, with the last time he won a match at the Sheffield theatre back in 2019.

O’Sullivan only decided to play in Sheffield last week after pulling out of a string of tournaments beforehand.

He was getting used to a new cue after snapping his previous one in January and was trying to get into the right head space after struggling to feel comfortable at the table.

The Rocket admits that he questioned whether he should be in Sheffield and was scared of performing at the ‘daunting’ Crucible, but psychiatrist Steve Peters has helped him through it.

‘I’ve wondered what I’m doing coming here, exposing myself, imploding out there, having a meltdown. That’s been in my head,’ he told a post-match press conference.

‘I told Steve Peters that and he said he was coming and would get me through my first match.

‘I was a bit scared about coming and playing. It’s a daunting venue to play at anyway. It was about getting on the bike again and playing. I’m really happy that I’ve done it.

‘This game can humble you. That’s where I’ve been. It’s a nice feeling to have one good session. I feel like I’ve had a victory just winning the match.

‘The result didn’t matter. I’ve made the breakthrough of coming out and playing. It’s a work in progress and I’ll keep working hard at it.’

Waiting for O’Sullivan in the last 16 is Pang Junxu after he beat his Chinese compatriot Zhang Anda 10-7 in his first contest.

Pang and O’Sullivan met in the opening round of the 2023 World Championship, with the Rocket emerging a 10-7 winner.

However, the 25-year-old has picked up two wins over O’Sullivan in his short career so far, most recently at this season’s International Championship when he played brilliantly to win 6-4.

Speaking to the BBC, O’Sullivan said: ‘I didn’t have no expectations here so there was really on nerves going through the body. I didn’t expect to perform well, based on the last three or four years. I just wanted to make a little bit of a game of it.

‘I just think this game has a way of humbling you in so many ways. I’ve had it over the years. you might go a year, two years where your game’s just not there and a lot of self doubt creeps in.

‘This one’s probably been the hardest one of all. I want to play for as long as I can. If everything goes great I could probably get 5-6 years, if it doesn’t I’ll still commit to two years and just focus on playing and give myself every opportunity to try and finish on a nice feeling. The sport’s been good to me, I love the game. That’s the plan.’

The performance in Wednesday’s second session will be very encouraging for O’Sullivan fans as he really did look impressive, fluent and confident again.

He arrived at the Crucible playing down expectations, but they will surge again after a dominant five frames to power to victory and set up a second round match for which he will be the heavy favourite.

Mark Allen in the BBC studio said: ‘We can talk all day about some of the mistakes Ali made but you just have to hold your hands up sometimes and say that is ridiculous snooker from Ronnie O’Sullivan.

‘You can’t play any better than that. What was a close match 90 minutes ago turned into a comfortable win.’

Carter told the BBC: ‘I think I was always in it at 5-4 but as you saw there Ronnie got going and I just seemed to keep finding myself in awkward positions, got in the balls and split the back of the pack a couple of times and I missed a couple of blacks off the cushion where I couldn’t really get on anything.

‘It just went from bad to worse, it begins to get a little bit embarrassing out there but I’m playing the greatest player of all time, it’s not easy, but I’ll be back next year.’