Ronnie O’Sullivan spoke honestly about where his game is at after losing 10-7 to Thailand’s Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in the final of the World Open in Yushan on Sunday
Ronnie O’Sullivan was beaten by Thepchaiya Un-Nooh(Image: Tai Chengzhe/VCG via Getty Images)
Ronnie O’Sullivan has opened up on the self-doubts that have plagued him recently after being beaten in the final of the World Open on Sunday. The seven-time world champion lost 10-7 to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in Yushan.
O’Sullivan stormed into a 4-0 lead against his Thai opponent and appeared to be on course for a 42nd ranking title. However, Un-Nooh produced a superb comeback, making a 147-break and three consecutive centuries to claim the biggest win of his career.
The 40-year-old, who had beaten world No.1 Judd Trump in the semi-final, claimed the £175,000 prize and left O’Sullivan to reflect on his performances in China. The 50-year-old has decided not to play at the Tour Championship in Manchester, but is now targeting the Snooker World Championship, which starts on April 18 at the Crucible in Sheffield.
“I can’t wait for the season to end. I can only take one day, one week at a time,” O’Sullivan admitted. “I can’t look any further than a week at the moment with my career. You know, I’ve not been playing for a reason. It’s just because I haven’t had a game good enough to compete.
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“So I’ve been trying to find that on the practice table and then hopefully bring it into the match table. I felt I played quite good at the start of the season. Then I had a dip for a couple of months. Like January and February weren’t good. I thought, oh, here we go. But I managed to pull it back a little bit. We’ll just see how it goes.
“I wasn’t even going to play in the World Championship 10 days ago because I was too scared. I felt I was going to embarrass myself. But now I feel like I probably will go because I feel like I can at least pot a few balls.
“I feel like I might pot a few balls. It’s not great. I’m not in a great, great place with it, but I’m better than I was maybe two weeks ago.”
O’Sullivan congratulated his opponent, who he said gave him a “good hiding”, before going into detail on his own technical struggles. The Rocket has not won a ranking title since January 2024, but is still ranked 10th in the world.
“It has been a positive week. Thepchaiya was unbelievable, he deserved his victory,” he added. “Listen, I mean my game’s not good enough to go to that level – simple as that. It used to be. Everyone’s played okay against me this week, so my game has been good enough to beat players that are playing okay.
“I just can’t get to the potting angle of certain shots. I can play maybe 60-70 per cent of the shots comfortably, but there’s other shots that I just don’t have in my locker. When someone plays like that and I’m just one-dimensional basically, it just limits what I can do, limits the amount of pressure I can put on my opponent.
“Obviously Thepchaiya was just flowing and had every shot in the book, and he was too good for me. I just have to accept that’s how it is. If I can find that little bit extra, then I could have maybe made it a bit more tougher for him.
“But on the whole, I have to be in a much better place now than I was for the last three years. It could easily fall apart. I could be in a bad place soon. So I’m just taking each day, each week as it comes. I’m not getting too excited or getting too down, really.”
