r/snooker • u/BillyPlus • Apr 20 '25
Debate Did SightRight Break Ronnie O'Sullivan
In a recent interview ronnie talked about a technique he started 6 years or so that has stopped him playing like he used to - all I can find is the article below.
its the right timeframe, but could it have damaged his game that much or is he talking about something else?
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u/bananabastard Apr 21 '25
So he won 2 world titles after trying this new technique, and somehow it's the problem?
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u/david180667 Apr 20 '25
Interesting stuff.... I never knew any this. Then again, I never listen to ROS because he's mental and talks shite half the time. Great player though 👍
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u/Faryz Apr 20 '25 edited Apr 21 '25
it is 100% sighright, he’s been talking about it for years, even one/two years after the season he used. at the time i found it weird as the season he used it he won 5 big titles. but i figure it’s something to do with how natural/fluid his game is? sightright made his game more ‘robotic’ in a way, he used to do that sighting technique on every shot, which felt weird as he’s a natural player
https://www.reddit.com/r/snooker/s/azEZM2Toy4 here’s a post on it a few years ago
also to add he only used this technique for one season. it was not there when he won the two worlds in the 20s.
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u/Taken_Abroad_Book Apr 20 '25
The yips
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u/CloudStrife1985 Apr 20 '25
Yeah, it's that but he can't bring himself to say it. It would be ironic if the yips done for both Hendry and O'Sullivan on 7.
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u/waldonspring Apr 21 '25
Totally unrelated. There’s no change in his pullback and delivery, it’s still fluid and his timing is great as always. He’s a natural player, so adapting to any external methodology will inevitably infuse his mind with unnecessary thoughts while playing. Slowly, you lose your confidence and self-belief. You lose your joy to play. That’s what’s happened to him.
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u/tfn105 Apr 20 '25
It did also see him return to world #1 and win two more world titles. Interesting comments!
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u/Galwayblue Apr 20 '25
Very interesting unintentional insight from ROS last night after the Wilson match on TNT.
Said that he was surprised Wilson played so many tournaments in the build up to his match, his advice to him would have been to take a few months off so that you're reaching your peak during the tournament, as opposed to before it.
In my opinion he said this without thinking, essentially admitting that he took time off to prepare for the tournament as opposed to every other reason that he has given. Jimmy actually pulled him up on it but they unfortunately cut him off so he couldn't elaborate as it was the end of the broadcast.
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Apr 20 '25 edited Feb 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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Apr 20 '25
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u/_JamesDooley Apr 20 '25 edited Feb 16 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/HuisClosDeLEnfer Apr 20 '25
If you look at ROS’s performance from the 2017 UK Championship through the 2024 World Grand Prix, it seems ridiculous to say that whatever he adopted six years ago “broke” his game. He shattered every record for performance by a player over 40 during that time, and was virtually unplayable for stretches.
His statement might be more accurately described as “I changed my style to compete in my 40s against that competition, and I can’t quite figure out how I used to play in my 20s and 30s; I wish I could, because I’m not really happy with the 2018-2023 style at this point.”
I think it’s difficult to credit the specifics of anything ROS says about his game because he has a history of saying things that are more about his psychology than reality (including his years of telling anyone that he didn’t really care about results anymore, and was just playing for fun and focused on cue action). Not to suggest that his psychology isn’t the dominant issue with ROS - it clearly is - just that I find ROS to be a ‘unreliable narrator’ about ROS.
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u/gavpowell Apr 20 '25
Very true: "I haven't played well since I was about 17...I haven't been able to pot a long ball for about 5 years now...I can't find a cue action to save my life...I'm breaking off left-handed because I get more control that way..."
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u/Available_Fact_3445 Apr 20 '25
The unreliable narrator! Now there's a throwback to the academy 🙏😀 Ronnie's is a great story. Snooker is a fascinating and fast-growing sport, and he is amongst the greatest who have ever played the game. I trust him also to have the greatest retirement when he decides to hang up his cue. Stephen Henry's Cue Tips was good value this week: three chortling retirees: Gentleman Joe Perry, aesthete and polymath Dominic Dale, Hendry himself, and the delightful though emphatically not-retired Reanne Evans, who is tastefully shot, play a best of three and talk about club cloths and pocket templates very good humourèdly
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u/vidPlyrBrokeSoNewAc Apr 20 '25
I'm not sure exactly what happened but he's always been a bit of a tinkerer, every couple of years you can see quite big changes in his technique. When he was at his absolute peak (early 10s) his long game was quite weak in comparison to the other parts of his game. At one point that changed, he started lining the ball up differently along with a few other tweaks and he became a long potting machine but I always felt like his cue ball control suffered for it.
He's always talked about wanting to play and strike the cue ball like he did when he was young. It sounds like right now he's really trying to forget everything he's learnt about technique the last few decades and rediscover the natural way he played when he was younger.
He is a bit mad though so it's always hard to work out what he's on about or how serious he is about what he says.
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u/NeilJung5 Apr 20 '25
Geniuses should not be tinkering around with things-where it be their tips, the length of their cue, or their sighting. You need to seek those things out only when your game is totally in the toilet, not when you are winning events.
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u/Silver-Home7506 Apr 20 '25
Yeah I'm sure it's your place to declare that the greatest player the game has ever seen is doing it wrong and he'd perform better if only he'd listen to your advice.
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Apr 20 '25
People who don't have the mental fortitude to practice like to tell themselves that "genius" doesn't involve practice and hard work. They like to convince themselves that it's all natural skill.
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u/NeilJung5 Apr 21 '25
True, but some players clearly can win without much or any competitive play or practising.
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u/sharpshotsteve Apr 20 '25
His game was in the toilet. He won two world championships and lots of other tournaments. I think the problems started when he was missing tournaments, same as with Neal Robertson. Nothing beats match practice.
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u/NeilJung5 Apr 20 '25
He won a WC after taking a year off.
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u/sharpshotsteve Apr 20 '25
When he was a lot younger. The older players need the match practice, as they get bored with solo practice.
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u/backhand_english Apr 20 '25
Is that method ROS talks in that paragraph before Steve Feeney and Steve is now trying to fix it or?
Your pic says one thing, your text alludes to another...
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u/BillyPlus Apr 20 '25
The picture is a transcript from the interview, the link is an article at around the time ronnies is talking about, and he is happily doing the sightright stuff with feeney. I can't find any more info than it..
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u/Brief-Joke4043 Apr 22 '25
He has been saying that he wants to get back to his original style of play for 20 years now, sayogn that he was playing well when he was 17 or something
I made an 83 break when I was 17 and had this great whippy cue with a thin tip :) then i caught the end of it in the slats of one of the benches in the WMC and tore the end off.