Hendry pokes fun at Ronnie O'Sullivan's record world title ambition: "there's no kidding me"

Throughout most of his career, O’Sullivan has generally kept his cards close to his chest when it comes to his title targets, although he recently expressed his desire to wear the world crown for an eighth time, which would be an unprecedented feat for the modern era.

Whilst playing at the German Masters in Berlin a few weeks ago - his first competitive outing of the new calendar year - 50-year-old O’Sullivan said: “I think that would be one last ambition left in snooker – to get the eighth World. It would be 8-8-8 (Triple Crown titles). That would be nice”.

O’Sullivan’s participation on the professional circuit in recent months has been sparse, and his results have been disappointing. His latest ranking event title triumph came over two years ago, and he has won only four matches on the World Snooker Tour since mid-October.

Taking into account these factors, ‘The Rocket’ also admitted that he may have left it ‘too late’ in order to achieve Crucible success this year: “I've probably left it a bit late. I’m not saying I can’t do it this year, I’d have to do alright in some of these tournaments beforehand. Maybe get to the quarters of the Worlds, you never know. It’s a different animal, that tournament, once you get to that stage, anybody can win it really”.

Hendry says he ‘wouldn’t like’ O’Sullivan breaking his Crucible record

Seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry - with whom O’Sullivan currently shares the modern-era record with - light-heartedly poked fun at O’Sullivan’s recognition of wanting another Crucible crown during an episode of the Snooker Club Podcast earlier this month.

The great Scot said: “Obviously all over social media saying his last ambition is to win the eighth, so he finally admitted it after all these years!”

“So you feel he is possibly getting ready for a big push in Sheffield.

“Listen, I know he wants to win an eighth, there’s no kidding me, and I’d be disappointed if he didn’t because he’s a winning machine, he’s a winning animal.

“And what he said, what an incentive to win 8-8-8 for the three Triple Crowns. I mean, what an achievement that would be - I wouldn’t like it, but it would be so cool for Ronnie to achieve that. Obviously I want it to stay 8-8-7, but yeah, 8-8-8 would be very cool”.

It might be foolish to write off arguably the greatest snooker player of all-time - he won the 2013 World Championship after effectively taking the whole year off the professional tour (bar one PTC match) - but it appears that O’Sullivan has a lot of work to do if he is going to be a really serious contender this year in Sheffield.

A couple of months away from snooker’s blue riband tournament and O’Sullivan is fifth-favourite with a lot of bookmakers, behind Judd Trump, Mark Selby, Zhao Xintong, and Kyren Wilson.

How much more we’ll see of the record 41-time ranking event winner before the 17-day ‘marathon of the mind’ in Yorkshire is a mystery, and may simply be down to how he is feeling.

O’Sullivan - who currently lives in Dubai - opted out of playing at this week’s Players Championship in Telford, and hasn’t entered next week’s Welsh Open in Llandudno. He previously mentioned about playing at the Tour Championship in Manchester, but seems to have cooled on the idea, although he does look set to feature at the World Open in Yushan, China in March.

Each and every season since turning professional for the 1992/1993 campaign, O’Sullivan has played at the Crucible for the World Championship. His top 16 seeding for this year’s edition looks pretty safe; provisionally he is 13th, although that may spell a more difficult route to the title this April/May.

With four tournaments - all with six-figure first prizes - still to come before the Worlds, a lot can change in the world rankings, but if the competition broke off tomorrow, and it went by the seedings, O’Sullivan would face Neil Robertson in the second round and Mark Williams in the quarter-finals.

Hendry feels that the main draw will be a big consideration in O’Sullivan’s push: “I think the draw is going to be very important as well in Sheffield...and it will be interesting to see when that draw comes out who plays who when, early, whatever”.