O’Sullivan sheds light on motivation for shedding weight

Ronnie O’Sullivan’s desire for success, focus, to lose weight and reconnect with friends encouraged him to return to defend his Betfair World Championship at the Crucible.

The 37-year-old from Chigwell – who was yesterday drawn against Marcus Campbell in the first round – confirmed in February that he would compete in Sheffield despite not playing in a tournament since.

“There’s a part of me that wants instant success,” the four-time champion said. “That would be nice, but for me it’s just about having fun.

“I felt it was time to have some sort of focus in my life.

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Running was a massive part of my life and I found I got that lazy having nothing to do, I had too much time to even go and run in the end. I started putting weight on.

“I realised that snooker gave me an opportunity to meet some good people, to travel and that’s

1st round draw

Judd Trump v Dominic Dale, Mark Williams v Michael White, John Higgins v Mark Davis, Barry Hawkins v Jack Lisowski, Stuart Bingham v Sam Baird, Matthew Stevens v Marco Fu, Ali Carter v Ben Woollaston, Neil Robertson v Robert Milkins, Mark Selby v Matthew Selt, Ricky Walden v Michael Holt, Ronnie O’Sullivan v Marcus Campbell, Shaun Murphy v Martin Gould, Ding Junhui v Alan McManus, Steven Maguire v Dechawat Poomjaeng, Graeme Dott v Peter Ebdon, Mark Allen v Mark King.

kind of what I missed, the routine.”

O’Sullivan has lost a stone since deciding to come back and plans to run during the 17-day World Championship, which begins on Saturday with his first-round match against Campbell.

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The world champion believes he has plenty to offer the game.

“If you look at it statistically I’ve done pretty well, but from my own perspective I feel like I’ve still underachieved,” he added.

“I’d like to win another world 
title in my forties. I’ve not set myself the goal to win this year’s world title because that would be a bit of a silly goal.

“I’d like to be a world champion when I’m 40. It gives me a bit of leeway. It’s the long game I’m looking at, rather than just the short-term. This is just the start.”

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Winning on his comeback would be an overwhelming experience, O’Sullivan admitted.

“It would be a fairytale dream, but last year was my greatest performance,” he said. “I’d had a good season and it was expected by pretty much everyone that I was going to win the tournament before it started.

“To me that is the ultimate achievement, because anything other than a win would’ve been seen as a failure in most people’s eyes.

“This year it’s a different ball game. I’ve come here with no matches under my belt.

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“It’ll just be nice to be out there playing. I don’t have anything to prove to the general public.”

He added: “It’s like my own reality TV show. It could be car crash, it could be good. You just don’t know.

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