Ronnie O'Sullivan is World Snooker Champion for the seventh time: Genie and Grinch

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Comments every shot with a grimace: Ronnie O'Sullivan

Photo: OLI SCARFF / AFP

Ronnie O'Sullivan is known for his emotions.

For his outbursts, his grimaces with which he comments on every shot of a game.

Puffy eyes but tears?

You rarely see that in the always grumpy snooker king.

O'Sullivan, 46, had just become world champion for the seventh time.

As the oldest player ever.

And he had set the record set by snooker legend Stephen Hendry from the 1990s.

But it wasn't this record that brought the Englishman to tears.

It was the words of his final opponent Judd Trump.

For minutes, the two lay in each other's arms, the cameras showed O'Sullivan's back and Trump's arms, how he grabbed vigorously - and spoke words in the winner's ear that were intended only for the man he later called the "best." Player of All Time" said: "He keeps getting better and better.

His determination and dedication are clear to see.

He was by far the best player of the tournament.«

The personal words beforehand will also have moved in line with this appreciation.

O'Sullivan didn't reveal any more details either, only later saying that it was these "beautiful words" that "woke him up".

Perhaps Trump reminded the man he had no chance against in the World Cup final at Sheffield's Crucible Theater of all his accomplishments.

The path he has taken before and since his first title 21 years ago, the battles he had to fight against himself next to the green table, the services he rendered as a figurehead to the sport to which he belonged always had an ambivalent relationship.

30 points ahead

Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan was considered one of the greatest snooker talents early on.

Adults got 30 points ahead of the boys from Wordsley near Birmingham.

He won his first professional title at the age of 17 when he defeated then-dominator Stephen Hendry at the 1993 UK Championship.

As a result, he collected titles on the assembly line, his fast-paced, aggressive and offensive game earned him the nickname The Rocket.

Since 1997 he has by far held the speed record for a so-called maximum: he needed five minutes and eight seconds for 36 shots with the maximum yield of 147 points in one shot.

Each sentence a headline

He didn't only show this aggressiveness in the game.

Again and again he threatened to resign, took on the scene, scolded the "so bad" offspring.

For years, every statement made by the enfant terrible of so-called gentleman's sport was basically a headline.

At the 2022 World Championships, the Grinch of Snooker came through only once, when he argued loudly with the referee at the start of the final.

But the tears of emotion will be remembered.

It's the durability that amazes with O'Sullivan.

His career had been accompanied by addiction problems and depression since the earliest phases.

It was not foreseeable that after 2001, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2013 he would suddenly win two more world titles in 2020 and 2022.

The so-called Triple Crown of World Cup, Masters and UK Championship, which is considered the measure of all things in snooker, has only been achieved by eleven players so far.

O'Sullivan has now won all three tournaments seven times each.

And even at the age of 46, he had no real opponents at this World Cup either.

Before the one-sided endgame, he clearly defeated his eternal rival John Higgins.

The first three rounds did not cause any problems for the snooker genius, who in interviews and his own books compares himself to sports icons such as Tiger Woods or Roger Federer.

Stephen Hendry said he was surprised it took O'Sullivan so long to equal his record.

It is "a great honor" for him to share the record with O'Sullivan.

"He took snooker to a whole new level." And Ronnie O'Sullivan?

He reacted in his well-known witty way: "We can share the record for a year."