O’Sullivan happy to stay on World Snooker’s Tour if changes are made

Ronnie O’Sullivan says he is happy to stay on World Snooker’s Tour if changes are made, with Barry Hearn calling his breakaway idea a “cranky scheme”.

The five-time world champion, the game’s greatest and most marketable player, stole the headlines at the UK Championship on Sunday as he claimed he was “ready to go” and kick-off a Champions League-style tour for the elite players.

Unhappy with playing conditions at venues he considers remote, along with a 128-player flat draw, O’Sullivan reckoned he was “just waiting for four or five unhappy players” to join him.

World number five Judd Trump said O’Sullivan was “living on a different planet” and Hearn, World Snooker’s chairman, was more scathing.

While acknowledging the 42-year-old, who beat Zhou Yuelong 6-0 on Monday to ensure he will celebrate his birthday in the last 16 on Wednesday, was a “genius” with a cue, Hearn told 5 Live: “(I am) incredulous as usual with Ronnie. He gets headlines, I will give him that, but it’s a nonsensical thought.

“Ronnie needs someone to play and it’s quite clear there is not one single player on the 128-member pro tour that will ever trust Mr O’Sullivan and his rather cranky schemes.

“He’s a genius and a fabulous player, but off the table he gets carried away and should be a little more mature with his comments.”

Hearn’s comments came during O’Sullivan’s routine third-round win at the sport’s second-biggest title, which he has won six times and pays £170,000 to its winner.

Shortly after that, O’Sullivan went into the BBC studio where he was interviewed by six-time world champion Steve Davis, who had already said while players look up to O’Sullivan’s abilities, they do not to his comments.

The pair, along with presenter Hazel Irvine and former world champion Ken Doherty, had an animated exchange, with O’Sullivan conceding he did not want to breakaway and would rather World Snooker made changes.

Later, O’Sullivan said: “He (Hearn) can ban me. If he wants to ban me tomorrow then I have already accepted that decision. I would rather walk away than live in fear about what I say.

“It doesn’t worry me what he says any more. He is on mute on Twitter and I don’t really have him in my thinking.

“I haven’t got too much time so either make the tweaks which will benefit everybody or don’t make the tweaks. I still have to be pro-active. But my gut feeling is nothing will change.

“It is simple, we need a few tweaks. Either do it or don’t do it. But if you don’t do it, I will look for alternatives because I still want to play.”

O’Sullivan wants World Snooker to make it simpler for “top” players to qualify for events and not have to travel from country to country chasing ranking points.

He said Roger Federer would not be asked to “qualify for Wimbledon at Richmond Park” and says breakaway talks came about because “I want to be number one and make the live TV events”.

O’Sullivan says that under the current set-up he has to “go backwards and forwards” to events in order to try and stay in the top 16.

The 33-time ranking event winner will be joined in the last 16 by Kyren Wilson, who posted breaks of 89 and 115 on his way to a 6-2 victory over Yan Bingtao, while former world champion Mark Williams eased his way past Noppon Saengkham 6-3.

A break of 135 saw Ali Carter level his match against Stephen Maguire at 2-2, but his opponent took four of the next five frames to progress.

Tom Ford and Alan McManus managed just one 50-plus visit apiece as the former ran out a 6-3 winner, in sharp contrast to Joe Perry, who made three figures on three occasions – the highest of them 127 in the sixth frame – as he saw off Joe O’Connor 6-2.

However, Lu Ning and world number 13 Luca Brecel found themselves engaged in an arm-wrestle with the Chinese player eventually prevailing 6-4, the same score by which Martin O’Donnell eventually went through after surviving a Tian Pengfei fightback from 4-0 down to 4-3.