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Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby TheRocket

Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was, but that’s enough'

Ronnie O’Sullivan feels he is only 70% of the player he was at his peak, but that is still enough to compete with the best in the world due to how good he was in his prime.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/08/07/ronnie-o ... -13099070/


Would you agree or not? Discuss.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Cloud Strife

Fair assessment from Ronnie, although a tad optimistic IMO. I reckon he's about 40% of the player he was at his peak.

Says everything about how good he is that he can still compete at the top table of snooker, despite his obvious decline.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Prop

The way I see it, he plays his peak game much less often than he used to. So he’s not 30% worse per se. His best game is still the best in the game, but we just don’t see it happen that much.

When he’s not on song, any number of the rest of the pack can beat him. Often a handful of frames pass him by before he actually finds a gear. For a while he was losing the first frame of a match with regularity.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Andre147

Prop wrote:The way I see it, he plays his peak game much less often than he used to. So he’s not 30% worse per se. His best game is still the best in the game, but we just don’t see it happen that much.

When he’s not on song, any number of the rest of the pack can beat him. Often a handful of frames pass him by before he actually finds a gear. For a while he was losing the first frame of a match with regularity.


Yeah it's less and less common, but that's to be expected with age.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Acé

Agree he plays on 2-3 gears I've yet to see a match where he came out of the 3rd gear this season, it's in spurts like the WC but his head game was far stronger at this year's WC to compensate the lack of his A game which allows him to win through his B-C games

The last A game ROS I saw was 2019 Players Championship final vs Robertson where he annihilated him, and that was 2019 March.

Been a long time

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Iranu

Acé wrote:Agree he plays on 2-3 gears I've yet to see a match where he came out of the 3rd gear this season, it's in spurts like the WC but his head game was far stronger at this year's WC to compensate the lack of his A game which allows him to win through his B-C games

The last A game ROS I saw was 2019 Players Championship final vs Robertson where he annihilated him, and that was 2019 March.

Been a long time

Don’t you think the last few frames against Selby were him coming out of third gear?

Or are you referring to an entire match?

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Acé

Iranu wrote:
Acé wrote:Agree he plays on 2-3 gears I've yet to see a match where he came out of the 3rd gear this season, it's in spurts like the WC but his head game was far stronger at this year's WC to compensate the lack of his A game which allows him to win through his B-C games

The last A game ROS I saw was 2019 Players Championship final vs Robertson where he annihilated him, and that was 2019 March.

Been a long time

Don’t you think the last few frames against Selby were him coming out of third gear?

Or are you referring to an entire match?


Full match where he's flowing, those last 3 frames were out of third gear.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Andre147

Iranu wrote:
Acé wrote:Agree he plays on 2-3 gears I've yet to see a match where he came out of the 3rd gear this season, it's in spurts like the WC but his head game was far stronger at this year's WC to compensate the lack of his A game which allows him to win through his B-C games

The last A game ROS I saw was 2019 Players Championship final vs Robertson where he annihilated him, and that was 2019 March.

Been a long time

Don’t you think the last few frames against Selby were him coming out of third gear?

Or are you referring to an entire match?


Yeah I think he was refering entire match.

Which is true, the older he gets, the harder it is to maintain your A game for long periods.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Iranu

Acé wrote:
Iranu wrote:
Acé wrote:Agree he plays on 2-3 gears I've yet to see a match where he came out of the 3rd gear this season, it's in spurts like the WC but his head game was far stronger at this year's WC to compensate the lack of his A game which allows him to win through his B-C games

The last A game ROS I saw was 2019 Players Championship final vs Robertson where he annihilated him, and that was 2019 March.

Been a long time

Don’t you think the last few frames against Selby were him coming out of third gear?

Or are you referring to an entire match?


Full match where he's flowing, those last 3 frames were out of third gear.

Gotcha, yeah I’d probably agree with you then.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby TheRocket

no doubt its getting harder for him to sustain a high level for very long periods now.

For the first time actually Ronnie won a World title the way he won it this year. You saw him make some fantastic breaks like he always does but then he also made a lot of basic errors. I think he missed like three blacks off the spot against Ding in the final session. Against Williams he missed a simple blue which was matchball. Against Wilson he was completely gone in the 2nd session. Dont know how he won 4 frames.

There was a lot of easy balls missed but he always came up with an one visit break to compensate it. Which was enough to win the World title.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby D4P

TheRocket wrote:no doubt its getting harder for him to sustain a high level for very long periods now.

For the first time actually Ronnie won a World title the way he won it this year. You saw him make some fantastic breaks like he always does but then he also made a lot of basic errors. I think he missed like three blacks off the spot against Ding in the final session. Against Williams he missed a simple blue which was matchball. Against Wilson he was completely gone in the 2nd session. Dont know how he won 4 frames.

There was a lot of easy balls missed but he always came up with an one visit break to compensate it. Which was enough to win the World title.


I think the bottom line for the 2020 WC was that everyone was rusty, and Rusty Ronnie has pretty much always been better than Rusty Anyone Else. Yes, he made mistakes that he wouldn't normally make, but so did everyone else, and Ronnie arguably made fewer...

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby TheRocket

D4P wrote:
TheRocket wrote:no doubt its getting harder for him to sustain a high level for very long periods now.

For the first time actually Ronnie won a World title the way he won it this year. You saw him make some fantastic breaks like he always does but then he also made a lot of basic errors. I think he missed like three blacks off the spot against Ding in the final session. Against Williams he missed a simple blue which was matchball. Against Wilson he was completely gone in the 2nd session. Dont know how he won 4 frames.

There was a lot of easy balls missed but he always came up with an one visit break to compensate it. Which was enough to win the World title.


I think the bottom line for the 2020 WC was that everyone was rusty, and Rusty Ronnie has pretty much always been better than Rusty Anyone Else. Yes, he made mistakes that he wouldn't normally make, but so did everyone else, and Ronnie arguably made fewer...


yeah good point. And Ronnie did actually pretty well for someone who didnt feel confident about his cue action. <laugh>

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby LC

It was C game ROS for large parts of the tournament, only in patches he hit the high level only a handful of players can, like the 2 and a half frames at the end of selby match.
Wonder if he can hit that high level consistently anymore?

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Andre147

LC wrote:It was C game ROS for large parts of the tournament, only in patches he hit the high level only a handful of players can, like the 2 and a half frames at the end of selby match.
Wonder if he can hit that high level consistently anymore?


He can, but only in short bursts.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Wildey

Standard wise the World Championship this year was lacking but that equated to a lot of exciting matches the final the exception Ronnie took advantage of that because no player can play as little and still perform like Ronnie.


Don't think he would have won playing like he did in a normal season he took advantage of Covid situation and won Well deserved but i would go further than him id say he's only 55 to 60% of the player he was. and that will fall further over the coming years its inevitable.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby TheRocket

I do agree that the Covid situation (no crowd) suited Ronnie but I dont think the standard this year was any worse than last year. I know they were 100 centuries last year but many people here agreed it was very poor quality with the only exception being the final when Judd Trump played brillant and the highest standard in a World final. But the other topplayers didnt perform at all.

And you had Gilbert and Gary Wilson in the semis. This year it was Kyren Wilson and McGill. And I'd say Kyren Wilson is a better player than Gilbert and Gary Wilson. And McGill a more successful one.

Difference this year was that we had the "real" final in the semis (O'Sullivan-Selby) as we had Kyren Wilson vs McGill in the other semifinal while last year Trump-Higgins was the actual final.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Iranu

Wildey wrote:Standard wise the World Championship this year was lacking but that equated to a lot of exciting matches the final the exception Ronnie took advantage of that because no player can play as little and still perform like Ronnie.


Don't think he would have won playing like he did in a normal season he took advantage of Covid situation and won Well deserved but i would go further than him id say he's only 55 to 60% of the player he was. and that will fall further over the coming years its inevitable.

I think the noticeably tighter pockets made the standard seem worse than it actually was.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Iranu

Andre147 wrote:
LC wrote:It was C game ROS for large parts of the tournament, only in patches he hit the high level only a handful of players can, like the 2 and a half frames at the end of selby match.
Wonder if he can hit that high level consistently anymore?


He can, but only in short bursts.

I don’t think this is true. Just because he hasn’t done it in a while that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of performing like that for a whole match anymore.

It’s not like he used to do it all the time.