Ronnie O’Sullivan can be ‘scared’ to teach snooker rival who’s ‘underperforming’

Ronnie O’Sullivan has revealed the snooker player he’d most like to mentor, although he confessed he’d be “scared” to alter any aspect of his game.

The Rocket has revealed that he almost withdrew from the forthcoming World Championship to guide a young player, while his participation at the Crucible remains uncertain. The seven-time world champion will make a decision in the days leading up to the April 19 kick-off as to whether he’ll compete in the first round.

He hasn’t played professionally since January and has pulled out of numerous high-profile tournaments due to health issues. However, with one eye potentially on his post-playing career, the Rocket seems very receptive to a coaching role. He considered guiding a young player at the Crucible while also providing punditry for TNT Sports, had the Essex potter already decided to miss the event.

He singled out Luca Brecel, the 2023 world champion, as the player he’d most like to collaborate with. But O’Sullivan is wary of “touching him” for fear of jeopardising the natural talent that the Belgian Bullet possesses.

“I think Luca Brecel’s an interesting case,” O’Sullivan told TNT Sports. “But I’m not sure he’s somebody that you could coach really, in many ways. I think he’s pretty much got all the game, but with someone like Luca, you’d be scared to touch him because he’s such a natural talent.

“But I think there are some little areas where he could maybe improve his consistency levels. Instead of playing lights-out snooker for 20 per cent of the year, he could play lights-out snooker for 10 per cent of the year, but then his middle game becomes a lot stronger.

“I believe someone like him is so talented that he doesn’t need to play brilliantly to win. So he’d be an interesting case. It would be someone that I think has the talent and the game but maybe is just underperforming. I don’t know who I would like to work with, but it would certainly be interesting to look at who’s about and see if I could work with someone.”

Brecel’s form nosedived alarmingly after his Crucible triumph in 2023, which saw him beat four-time world champion Mark Selby in the final. At one stage, there was a danger that Brecel would drop off the tour at the end of this season when his prize money for winning the world title two years ago is due to come off his ranking tally.

However, improved form in recent months has staved off that embarrassing prospect, although he will start the 2025/26 only just inside the top 64 if he goes out early at the Crucible this year. There have been question marks about his relaxed attitude to practice while he has taken up triathlon training.

O’Sullivan would ideally like to work with Brecel for a few month a year. He said: “I think with Luca, it’s very difficult for him to just focus on living the life of a snooker player. And I totally get it, he lives in Belgium and it’s a tough ask to keep leaving, going home, leaving.

“I’d just say to him: ‘Look, give me four or five months of the year where you totally devote yourself to snooker. You do your three or four hours practice every day, you do your gym, you do whatever, you do your tournaments. But just give me that’.”

“And then for the rest of it, if you want to play, play, if you don’t, you don’t – no problem. But I think as long as he could just focus for that intense period of time – he’s okay to take time out, he doesn’t need to play every day.

“But you have to have spells where you’re on it. With someone like Luca, he doesn’t have to be on it all the time, he just needs one good training camp a year, where he’s practising and playing a lot of events, and that could be September, October, November, December.

“And I’d say come January, just pick and choose what you want to do, you don’t have to play every tournament, but for that first start of the season, really go at it hard and give it everything, and I think that would be a wise way for him to approach it in many ways.”