Ronnie O’Sullivan might miss £790k Saudi snooker 167 prize via no fault of his personal
Ronnie O’Sullivan will be hoping to bank £790,000 ($1million) for making a maximum break of 167 at the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship, but the Rocket could be denied the prize
Ronnie O’Sullivan could potentially miss out on a whopping £790,000 ($1million) before the snooker icon even gets a chance to play at the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship.
The hefty prize is up for grabs for the first player to achieve a maximum break of 167. Last year, the lucrative Saudi snooker tournament introduced a new ‘golden ball’ worth 20 points, pushing the traditional maximum break score from 147 to 167.
The first player to pot the maximum break last year pocketed approximately £393k ($500k). This year, the prize money has been doubled after no one managed to accomplish this feat in the competition’s inaugural edition last year.John Higgins came closest, potting 15 reds and 15 breaks, but he missed an extremely challenging yellow. However, due to the event’s scheduling, all of O’Sullivan’s competitors will have the opportunity to complete the maximum break before he even takes part in the tournament.
The Rocket is slated to play his first match last, with players like Ding Junhui, Luca Brecel, Shaun Murphy, Kyren Wilson, Judd Trump and Mark Selby all scheduled to play before O’Sullivan, reports the Express.
The 49-year-old’s first match is set for Thursday, against the winner of Murphy’s match against either Ding or local star Abdulraouf Sayegh. There’s a chance that the maximum break might already be scored by the time fans get to see O’Sullivan play for the first time.Sayegh has secured one of the two Saudi wildcard spots to join the elite group of the world’s top 10 snooker players in the non-ranking event, where the victor stands to pocket a cool £250,000. The reward for sinking a maximum break in this tournament is even heftier than the £500k Wilson bagged for his World Snooker Championship triumph earlier this year.O’Sullivan has been fine-tuning his calendar as the year winds down, opting out of the Scottish Open just a day before his scheduled match against Xing Zihao. The seven-time world champion found himself on the back foot after being ousted by Barry Hawkins in his opening bout at the UK Championship.
O’Sullivan, who’s never shy about his affections, recently gushed over China to the World Snooker Tour, saying: “I always tell people you have to come to China. For me, it’s the greatest place on Earth.”He continued to sing praises of the country, urging: “I would just recommend anybody to just come to China. It blows me away. Every city I come to in China… it’s like you’re in another world. It’s the best place in the world. There is no other place like China. Every city just has something amazing about it and Nanjing has a lot of history.”
