Ronnie O'Sullivan is back at the Crucible this week, making his debut in the World Seniors Snooker Championship on Friday afternoon. The 50-year-old is the runaway favourite to win the tournament, which features recognisable names like Stuart Bingham, Ali Carter and Matthew Stevens alongside amateur hopefuls including Australia's Roger Farebrother and Egypt's Mohamed Elkhayat.
Why O'Sullivan Can Now Play
While O'Sullivan comfortably fulfils 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 able to play in Seniors events if they were outside of the top 64 in the world rankings. As World Seniors Snooker (WSS) wanted to change that, 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 in Seniors events, and O'Sullivan has chosen to have a crack at winning the title in Sheffield.
Relationship with Jason Francis
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. The seven-time world champion is also set to play in the Snooker 900 Global Championship next week, also organised by Francis.
After his first round victory over He Guoqiang in the World Snooker Championship last month, O'Sullivan explained his decision: 'I don't know really. It felt like a good idea at the time. 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, saying: '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 be playing in the World Seniors Championship, 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.'
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.
Development of the Seniors Tour
On the development of the Seniors tour, Francis 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 Parrott, 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.'
