When Ronnie O'Sullivan said the World Snooker Championship draw was fixed: "trying to stitch me up"

Throughout the first half of his professional career, Ronnie O’Sullivan was no stranger to controversary and getting himself into hot water with the sport’s authorities.

One such flashpoint came shortly before the 2007 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

Speaking to Zoo Magazine, the then two-time world champion suggested that the opening round draw had been rigged against him having been pitched against one of the fellow favourites for the title, Ding Junhui.

Chinese snooker trailblazer Ding was already a multiple-time ranking event winner and former UK Champion by this point, but was still ranked outside of the world’s top 16 and had to qualify for the main draw of the sport’s blue riband event. And he made the Crucible grade for the first time in 2007 after defeating Mark Davis in his preliminary round assignment.

Unlike these days when the draw is performed and released live, back in 2007 the first round pairings were not shown or made public until the following day.

This wasn’t the case the year before, but after issues with the live draw in 2006, authorities thought it best to pre-record and show it later in case there were any mishaps.

The draw for the 2007 Championship was performed by BBC Breakfast programme presenters Bill Turnbull and Sian Williams, with footage of the proceedings broadcast the next day.

World Snooker officials and sponsors were present for the draw which was meant to kept hush hush, although word seemingly seeped out about the first round round fixtures as several bookmakers suspended betting on the tournament.

“Someone's fixed the draw”

O’Sullivan was dealt some pretty stinking first round draws at the Crucible in the 2000s.

In 2000, despite making five century breaks, he was defeated 10-9 by future ranking event winner David Gray in round one.

He had former Crucible semi-finalist Andy Hicks in 2001, and then Hong Kong star Marco Fu in 2003. Against Fu, O'Sullivan fashioned his second Crucible maximum 147 break, but ended up losing the match.

'The Rocket' then met Stephen Maguire in the first round in consecutive years. O'Sullivan won both times, although only by a deciding frame in 2005 when Maguire was the reigning UK Champion.

In 2006, O'Sullivan faced the awkward prospect of former Asian Open winner Dave Harold, which he managed to negotiate.

Apparently frustrated with this sequence of tricky opening round opponents, O’Sullivan snapped upon learning that he had been pitched with Ding at the first hurdle for the upcoming edition at the Crucible.

Speaking to Zoo Magazine, O’Sullivan said: “My initial response was, 'F***, that's a hard one'.

“My next response was, 'F***, someone's fixed the draw', and then my next thought was, 'I've had Marco Fu, Stephen Maguire twice, and now Ding in the first round.

"It's definitely f*****g fixed. Whoever is doing that is trying to stitch me up."

O’Sullivan may have meant these comments in jest - Zoo Magazine was a ‘lads’ mag’ after all - but that angle wasn’t confirmed in the article.

Understandably, World Snooker took a dim view of the sport’s biggest star making such remarks, with a spokesperson saying in response: “It was 100% genuine. The balls were drawn randomly by two BBC presenters, representatives from 888.com (the title sponsors at the time) and World Snooker were there, and there was an independent auditor.”

This incident happened only a few months after O’Sullivan’s walkout mid-match against Stephen Hendry at the 2006 UK Championship.

Several weeks later, the Englishman reached the Masters final in London where he defeated Ding, 10-3, to claim the Triple Crown title for the third time in his career. Towards the end of that final, O’Sullivan consoled his distressed opponent who found the going tough not only on the table, but against a ferociously partisan crowd.

At the Crucible, despite his draw concerns, O’Sullivan would deliver another towelling to Ding with a 10-2 victory. He went on to reach the quarter-finals in Sheffield where he lost to eventual champion that year, John Higgins.

Whether O’Sullivan got a ticking off by the hierarchy behind closed doors is unclear, but it doesn’t seem like he was publicly punished for his comments.

The following year, in 2008, he compiled his third Crucible 147 en route to completing a hat-trick of world championship titles.