World champion pundits at British Open issue verdict on future Ronnie O'Sullivan success

O’Sullivan will not be in Cheltenham this week for the £502,000 world ranking event having withdrawn due to personal reasons just hours after his disappointing semi-final loss at the Wuhan Open, last Friday.

Widely regarded as snooker’s greatest player of all-time, seven-times World Champion O’Sullivan is enduring a title drought on the professional circuit, with his last trophy coming at the World Masters of Snooker (now known as the Riyadh Season Championship) in March 2024, and his last ranking accolade being a couple of months before that at the World Grand Prix.

There have been signature flashes of brilliance from ‘The Rocket’ during this dry run, though, and he has come very close to adding to his record 41 ranking event title haul.

Last season, at the Saudi Arabia Masters, O’Sullivan compiled two maximum 147 breaks during his semi-final win before being denied by Neil Robertson in the final by a deciding frame. Several months later at the World Open in China, he compiled a record-high break of 153 in the quarter-finals, but was stopped by an inspired Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in the final, who himself made a 147.

The 50-year-old Englishman has tasted success away from the top tier in recent months by winning the World Seniors Snooker Championship on debut, and at the inaugural Global Snooker 900 Championship, but in terms of professional competition, he went back-to-back seasons without a title of any description for the first time in his illustrious career.

In recent interviews, O’Sullivan has made his future intentions in the sport clear - he’ll give himself until the end of the 2028 World Championship to see where his game is at, but if it hasn’t improved, then he will retire. However, he may have to hang up his cue earlier if he falls outside the world’s top 16 rankings, as he stated that he won’t be playing in qualifiers.

Throughout the recent Wuhan Open - where he did win four matches, and defeated new China Open champion Mark Selby in the last eight - a downbeat O’Sullivan was very self-critical about the current state of his game, a continuing theme from recent months. Upon his China Open exit a few weeks ago, he labelled himself as “a very, very poor snooker player at the moment”.

Hendry predicts O’Sullivan will “win a tournament this season”

Despite not being at the 2026 British Open - it’s the fourth consecutive year that he has entered the tournament, but subsequently withdrawn - Channel 5 pundits Stephen Hendry and Ken Doherty were asked about O’Sullivan’s form and the likelihood of him returning to the winner’s step.

Fellow seven-times Crucible king Hendry believes that O’Sullivan will end his wait for a title this season: “his post-match press conferences have been very scathing about his own game and the state of it at the moment.

“He’s had some good performances, beat Mark Selby from 2-0 down (at the Wuhan Open), scored very, very heavily.

“I think he’ll win a tournament this season. I don’t know which one, so don’t pin me down, but I think he’ll win a tournament because his game’s there, but just not for a whole week at the moment, but it remains to be seen.”

Doherty - who used to be a regular practise partner of O’Sullivan’s when they were younger - added that you can’t dismiss the 23-time Triple Crown event winner’s chances of further glory.

“You could never sort of write someone like Ronnie off because if he hits a purple patch, everybody better look out” said the 1997 World Champion.

“But, as Stephen says, they’re coming few and far between now those performances, so he needs a good consistent run, but I think he will win again, of course.”

O’Sullivan - who on the professional scene only played on UK soil twice last season - has also pulled out of next week’s English Open in Brentwood. Therefore, his next expected engagement on the World Snooker Tour is at the end of September for the Shenzhen Open.