Ronnie O’Sullivan’s honest verdict on Seniors Championship | Other | Sport

Ronnie O’Sullivan has admitted he is finding it hard with the World Seniors Championship table, and describes playing on it as “really confusing”. The seven-time world champion beat Ken Doherty in the second round 4-1 after receiving a bye through the opening stage as one of the eight seeded players.

O’Sullivan, 50, has been eligible to play on the World Seniors Snooker Tour since turning 40 in 2015, but is only now making his debut. However, the table they are playing on at the Crucible is taking The Rocket some time to get used to, leading to what he describes as ‘silly mistakes’.

However, he is enjoying the experience. O’Sullivan told Channel 5: “It was alright, I feel comfortable at the table, but snooker is not great, making some silly mistakes, but I’ll take feeling good and where I am at the moment to where I have been.”

After being asked about not quite finishing his win over Doherty with a century, he said: “I’m finding it hard with the table; it’s so fast on some shots and so slow on other shots, it’s really confusing. I know what sort of cloth it plays like, but it’s just hard to convince yourself to hit a ball a certain way on certain shots, so maybe if I get through today, tomorrow, you get a bit more used to it, you kind of have to change your shot selections in many ways.”

O’Sullivan’s presence at the tournament led to the Friday afternoon session selling out, which is a rarity for the Seniors Championship. He said: “It’s good, as long as the crowd enjoy it. Everywhere I go, I seem to get a good following, and I’m happy to hopefully play my part in a snooker event.”

He takes on Peter Lines in the evening session, hours after beating Doherty. Speaking about his preparations, O’Sullivan said: “I’m just gonna chill out for a bit.” He also did not know that Lines was his quarter-final opponent, repeating after being told who awaits him: “Oh, is it Peter Lines? OK, cool, yeah, another grinder, it’s the grinder’s tour.”

Lines beat fifth-seed Stuart Bingham in the second round, having beaten fellow unseeded player Anthony Hamilton by the same score in the first round. Whoever wins will face either the 2018 champion Igor Figueiredo, who whitewashed reigning champion and top seed Alfie Burden, or eight-seed Robert Milkins, who beat four-time World Seniors champion, Jimmy White.

Controversy surrounded Burden’s exit, with World Seniors Snooker boss Jason Francis apologising to the players after they had to play on a practice table. He told the Express: “I’ve written to Igor and Alfie and apologised that we were unable to provide a table for them to play on. It was obvious that there was a major joint and slate drop on table two, which meant it was unplayable.”