Ronnie O'Sullivan's trophy wait continues as he is denied record-breaking World Open title win

O’Sullivan was defeated by an inspired Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 10-7 in the final at the Yushan Sports Centre on Sunday, despite having led 4-0 early on.

Following a six-frame winning streak from his opponent, ‘The Rocket’ produced one of his signature purple patches with a hat-trick of century breaks to re-take the lead at 7-6 up.

However, momentum shifted again after the interval as Un-Nooh upped the ante with a scintillating spell of world class snooker, racking up runs of 77, 132, 147 and 131 in a memorable four-frame burst to the title and biggest triumph of his career, to date.

Despite not being eligible for the highest break due to O’Sullivan’s unprecedented 16-red 153 made earlier in the week, Un-Nooh’s maximum is a record-extending 23rd 147 of the season, from which he has contributed three, more than anyone else.

O’Sullivan misses out on creating multiple pieces of snooker history

Seven-time world champion O’Sullivan was chasing several new records in the final in the Far East, but he’ll have to wait for another day to add to his already bulky career CV.

‘The Rocket’ was aiming for a record-extending 42nd career ranking event crown; he would have pulled further away from second-placed Stephen Hendry who has 36 ranked titles to his name on the all-time list.

Appearing in his first professional final since turning 50-years-old last December, the Englishman was attempting to become the first player to have won ranking titles in five different decades of their life - teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.

Fellow ‘Class of 92’ graduate Mark Williams won the Xi’an Grand Prix earlier this season as a quinquagenarian - in the process becoming professional snooker’s oldest-ever ranking champion - but the Welshman didn’t lift a ranking trophy as a teenager. O’Sullivan still has a few more months yet before he can break that record of Williams’.

It’s a straight shootout between O’Sullivan and the other member of the the fabled ‘92 triumvirate, John Higgins, as to who will be the first to win ranked trophies in five different ten-year periods. The Scot has had two bites of the cherry to achieve that in recent months, but lost to Wu Yize in the International Championship final and to Zhao Xintong in the Players Championship final.

A record that Higgins currently has ahead of O’Sullivan is the longest time span between a player’s first and latest ranking event titles - that figure stands at 30 years and 165 days between his 1994 Grand Prix and 2025 Tour Championship successes.

Had 1993 UK Champion O’Sullivan defeated Un-Nooh, he would have bettered that benchmark by nearly two years, although in making the title match, he extends his own record span for ranking final appearances.

Over two years and counting without a trophy for O’Sullivan, but progress made

O’Sullivan’s trophyless sequence on the professional tour carries on; his last title of any description came at the Riyadh Season Championship in March 2024, while his last ranking triumph was at the World Grand Prix in January 2024.

During that season those two accolades were won, O’Sullivan also claimed the Shanghai Masters, UK Championship and Masters in what was a very successful campaign.

Since then, though, the last couple of seasons have proven frustrating, and at times very difficult. Whilst O’Sullivan has a lighter competition schedule compared to other top pros these days, his diary was sparser again last term when he deliberately snapped his cue in frustration at the start of 2025 and withdrew from a string of subsequent tournaments.

Earlier this season, he was within a frame of winning the Saudi Arabia Masters - in the semi-finals he historically fashioned two 147 maximum breaks within the same session - but from then until the start of this week, O’Sullivan returned a collection of disappointing results.

In his four most recent event outings before travelling to Yushan, he lost his first match in Riyadh and then the UK Championship, and then his second match at the German Masters and World Grand Prix.

But even by his own description after his final loss to Un-Nooh, his World Open run equated to being a ‘positive week’.

Following his opening round win over Ross Muir, O’Sullivan admitted to working hard behind the scenes in a bid to rekindle some consistent form, and it appears that hard graft on the practice table is starting to bear fruit.

He made 12 century breaks in six matches, won three of those fixtures with the loss of only one frame, and defeated two of this season’s standout players in Shaun Murphy and Wu Yize, coming through a deciding frame against the latter in the last four.

O’Sullivan’s next engagement on the top tier will be the 2026 World Snooker Championship, where he will be going for a record eighth Crucible crown.