Ronnie O'Sullivan issues honest self-assessment and admits to hard work for his 'one last throw of the dice'

The seven-time world champion was speaking to the World Snooker Tour shortly after his opening round win at the 2026 World Open in Yushan, China.

O’Sullivan - who was in competitive action for the first time in over five weeks - defeated Ross Muir 5-1 in the £825,000 world ranking event.

Breaks of 50, 83 and 69 helped O’Sullivan establish a 3-0 lead before world number 109 Muir cleared from green to black in frame four to get on the scoreboard.

However, after the mid-session interval, ‘The Rocket’ produced some brilliant free-flowing snooker, compiling efforts of 113 and 114 in consecutive frames to advance. His effort in frame five was a maximum 147 attempt that came to a halt when he went in-off after potting a very thin 15th black.

Due to Ishpreet Singh Chadha withdrawing from the event, O’Sullivan moves through to Wednesday’s last 32 where he is set to face Matthew Selt, who like O’Sullivan, currently lives in Dubai.

O’Sullivan pledges to two years commitment in attempt to turn around game

Arguably snooker’s greatest-ever exponent, O’Sullivan is without a title of any description in over two years now. The last of his record 41 ranking event crowns came at the World Grand Prix in January 2024.

Not unusual these days, O’Sullivan’s playing schedule this season has been fairly light compared to other professionals. But in his last four tournament outings on the circuit, he had won only two matches, including an opening round defeat at the UK Championship. He also withdrew from the Masters a few days before the London-based spectacular broke off.

In recent times, O’Sullivan has been brutally self-critical about his game, but it appears that he is taking positive steps to try and correct this.

O’Sullivan arrived in the Far East a week before the tournament began, partly to put in the hours on the practice table: “I’ve been practicing here. I got here a week early just to do some practice on my own” said the 50-year-old.

“I’ve been working really hard on my game. I know I haven’t played a lot of tournaments, but I’ve been working really hard on my game just because it’s been in such a bad place.

“It’s not like I haven’t been playing - it’s not like I’ve got my feet up while everyone’s playing. I thought I’ve really got to attack this now. I’ve got one last throw of the dice really.

“The last three years have been pretty awful really...just trying to work on that now and just see if I can get back to just delivering the cue freely. If I can’t, then I don’t know how long I can carry on playing how I have been playing for the last three years.

“I’m hopeful one day and then I’m really unhopeful the next day. I have a little breakthrough and then it goes, and it’s so frustrating, but like I said, I’ll commit to two years and try and work on it.

O’Sullivan doesn’t want to waste his time or be scared of the game

O’Sullivan, who is a perfectionist and has talked in the past about preferring to play well rather than winning, is insistent, though, that he will walk away from the sport should his fortunes not change in the future.

Under no illusions how difficult that will be, the record 23-time major winner said: “If that doesn’t work then in two years I’d have to really consider...probably wouldn’t be able to carry on if it doesn’t get somewhere near how I feel I need to be...I’d just be wasting my time to go out there and play and not be confident or be scared of the game.

“That’s not a way I really want to play my career. There’s a lot of hard work to do - prepared to do it - but obviously you have to put a time limit on that otherwise you end up like 70, 80 still trying to work it out!

“You know when you have to rebuild as a player, you know, you see the competition, you see where your game’s at - if you want to stand ahead of the pack, at least with the top guys, sometimes you have to take the game apart and add other stuff to be able to compete.”

Despite his title wait, O’Sullivan is still ranked inside the world’s elite top 16 rankings and is set to be a seed at the Crucible for the upcoming World Championship.

O’Sullivan is also in a qualifying spot for the 12-player Tour Championship that begins in Manchester later this month, although his participation in that particular event is doubtful.

To view the full draw, results, schedule, and other information from the 2026 World Open, visit here.