Ronnie O’Sullivan explains reason behind wearing trainers at UK Championship
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Ronnie O’Sullivan has explained the reason why he donned trainers as opposed to dress shoes at the UK Championship for his first-round win over Anthony McGill. He won six consecutive frames to recover from an early deficit and win 6-2 at the Barbican in York.
Snooker players are typically required to wear smart, black dress shoes when competing but instead the Rocket had a pair of trainers on which left many viewers confused. However, the tournament’s seven-time champion has explained that injury has forced him into a change of shoes.
“I’ve got plantar fasciitis which is, the easiest way to explain it is, it’s like a bruise on your heel,” O’Sullivan told Eurosport. “So when you put your foot down, it’s really sore. Leather-soled shoes just absolutely batter my feet to pieces. So I’ve had to resort to getting some really big old soles on them, just to sort of give my foot a rest, basically.”
O’Sullivan in his new pair of trainers took some time to warm up against McGill, losing the first two frames. He has played fewer events than usual this season and perhaps needed to shake off some rustiness, before blowing away his opponent by winning six frames in a row to advance to the last 16.
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“Tough start, obviously, 2-0 down [in] best-of-11 playing a very, very good player,” O’Sullivan added. “So I felt like I had to get a grip of the game at some point, but you just never know, it could be 4-0 at the interval and going out of the tournament.
“So you go through all those emotions, but you just hope you get a chance to do something. It’s not easy and there’s a lot of pressure out there. It’s pressure because you want to do well in these tournaments.
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“These are the big tournaments, you want to have a good run in them. You want to win one, two matches and get into the meat of the tournament. Then if you get beat then fair enough, but you don’t want to go out in the first round.”
It is unclear whether O’Sullivan would be punished by the World Snooker Tour after breaking their dress code, but as the 47-year-old has given a medical reason for the swap in footwear he could be given a pass.
There have been calls in the past for snooker to relax its dress code as 2023 World Snooker Championship victor Luca Brecel wanted the traditional bow-tie axed, and it has once again been put in the public eye after O’Sullivan swapped his dress shoes for trainers in York.
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