Ronnie O’Sullivan reflects on storming out of Stephen Hendry clash

Ronnie O'Sullivan explains why he made a 146 in 2016

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Ronnie O’Sullivan has looked back on his 2006 UK Championship clash with Stephen Hendry which saw him give up on the match. ‘The Rocket’ has gone through a positive transformation regarding the mental side of his snooker game over the years, especially once he began working with Steve Peters at the age of 35 in 2011.

The pair have formed a solid partnership over the last decade, with the 46-year-old able to reflect on the work they have done together to turn his mentality around. During a conversation with good friend and former rival, Alan McManus, on Eurosport show Seventh Heaven, the seven-time world champion recalled an incident in his career where perhaps his emotions got the better of him.

While competing against fellow snooker legend Hendry 16 years ago, he stunned those in attendance by walking out of their encounter. Looking back, O’Sullivan believes that it was “the devil inside me” and explained how Peters helped him to be less impulsive, an outlook that has helped him considerably in his iconic snooker career.

“Pre-Steve Peters, I think I walked out in a match against Stephen Hendry,” O’Sullivan shared. “My head was gone. I wasn’t playing well and I didn’t want to be there. I shook hands and walked out.

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“A lot of it was in-the-moment stuff. It was just reacting, ‘I’m playing rubbish, don’t want to be here, can’t win this match’. So it was just kind of trying to ignore that voice, even though it is still there. Even though I still thought I wanted to act on impulse, I kind of stopped becoming impulsive. I realised that is the devil inside me.

“There have been probably a handful of matches since I’ve been working with Steve Peters where I’ve not thrown the towel in, but not fancied it. Whereas pre-Steve Peters, I would have had eight or nine tournaments a year like that where I would have been like ‘I’m out of here’.

“So that is a huge turnaround and I have allowed myself to compete more often. I am not a better player but I am a better thinker.” O’Sullivan was trailing his quarter-final encounter 4-1 when he missed a tough red leading 24-0 in the sixth frame before shaking hands with a stunned Hendry and equally bewildered Dutch referee Jan Verhaas.

Fast forward 16 years and O’Sullivan is currently competing in the Northern Ireland Open as he bids to win his maiden title at the event. On Sunday, he breezed through to the second round with a 4-0 win over Lukas Kleckers of Germany.

The world champion played down expectations going into his meeting with Kleckers, saying he was rusty in Hong Kong and had played little snooker since his win at the Crucible.

But he had never lost an opening match in a Home Nations event, and made it 24 consecutive first-round victories with a comfortable victory over Kleckers.

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