Ronnie O'Sullivan is back at the Crucible this week, making his debut in the World Seniors Snooker Championship on Friday afternoon. The seven-time world champion is the runaway favorite to win the tournament, which features recognizable names like Stuart Bingham, Ali Carter, and Matthew Stevens alongside amateur hopefuls including Australia's Roger Farebrother and Egypt's Mohamed Elkhayat.
Why is O'Sullivan Playing?
While the 50-year-old comfortably fulfills the age criteria of over 40, he was not able to play in Seniors events until a change in the rules last year. Previously, professional players were only eligible if they were outside the top 64 in the world rankings. World Seniors Snooker (WSS) wanted to change that, but an agreement could not be reached, and the partnership between World Snooker Tour (WST) and WSS was terminated. Now any player over 40 can compete, and O'Sullivan has chosen to have a crack at winning the title in Sheffield.
The Rocket has worked closely with WSS chairman Jason Francis for a number of years, with their relationship a big factor in O'Sullivan returning to the Crucible this week. He is also set to play in the Snooker 900 Global Championship next week in Reading, also organized by Francis.
After his first-round victory over He Guoqiang in the World Snooker Championship last month, O'Sullivan was asked why he had chosen to compete in these events. 'I don't know really. It felt like a good idea at the time,' he said. 'If I won this or got to the final I'd have to see if I could physically do the Seniors. But I wouldn't want to let Jason down. We've worked together a lot over the years and he said my health is more important. I'll try and do my best, but if I get dumped here by John [Higgins], I'll just be in Ireland for two weeks on holiday, have a little break and play the Pluto 900, which I look forward to. I suppose I'm just hedging my bets, in a way.'
After losing in the second round to Higgins, O'Sullivan confirmed his plans: 'I'll go back to Ireland tonight and just chill there and come back whenever I've got to play. Yeah, absolutely, yeah [I'll play the Seniors]. It's work, mate, got to go to work. Got bills to pay. Got a lot of people on the payroll.'
Other Players and Viewing Figures
Three-time world champion Mark Williams was also due to play but pulled out, replaced by Nigel Bond. Replying to a disgruntled fan on X, he explained: 'Sometimes you can't help these things, I'm in China tomorrow, there's lots of good matches still to watch there.'
The World Seniors Championship is being shown live on Channel 5 and Pluto TV, and Francis is expecting big viewing figures. 'The seniors is becoming a serious snooker competition,' he told Metro. 'If some of our bigger names got to the weekend then our viewing figures will probably be as big as in the UK for the Worlds, I would think. Channel 5, their free to air audience, they commit to showing every ball. We won't have the international reach of a BBC. I'm not saying the overall figures, that's a ludicrous statement, but in the UK alone, if we were to get the likes of Ronnie, into the weekend, then I think the viewing figures could be absolutely massive on Channel 5.'
On the development of the Seniors tour, he said: 'I think that Senior snooker has changed. I felt that we'd gone through a little bit of a fallow period. When we first started the Seniors World Championship, the likes of Dennis [Taylor], Cliff [Thorburn], John Parrot, Joe Johnson, 10 years ago, they could still play a bit better than they can now. Then gradually they retired off and we were very reliant on Jimmy [White] and Ken [Doherty]. Now, we stepped it up a little bit, added Joe [Perry] and Dominic [Dale], to the field. Now this has been a huge jump, being able to exit the restrictive agreement with World Snooker and being able to invite whichever players we want was fabulous.'
World Seniors Snooker Championship Schedule
Wednesday May 6
7pm: Craig Stedman vs Neal Jones, Tony Drago vs Roger Farebrother
Followed by: Igor Figueiredo vs Mohamed Elkhayat, Reanne Evans vs Aaron Canavan
Thursday May 7
12pm: Peter Lines vs Anthony Hamilton, Ken Doherty vs Gerard Greene
Followed by: Jimmy White vs Daniel Ward, Dominic Dale vs Wayne Townsend
Round Two 7pm: Robert Milkins vs White/Ward, Matthew Stevens vs Dale/Townsend
Followed by: Alfie Burden vs Figueiredo/Elkhayat, Ali Carter vs Drago/Farebrother
Friday May 8
12pm: Stuart Bingham vs Lines/Hamilton, Bond vs Steadman/Jones
Followed by: Ronnie O'Sullivan vs Doherty/Greene, Joe Perry vs Evans/Canavan
