Ronnie O’Sullivan said he no longer feels “trapped in a prison” and played down retirement talk after a dazzling 6-0 first-round win over Boonyarit Keattikun at the UK Championship in York on Wednesday.
The 40-year-old is looking for the 29th ranking title of his career and started in emphatic fashion, needing only 56 minutes to complete a whitewash victory over an overwhelmed Thai opponent.
The five-times UK champion made three centuries during the match and revealed he is enjoying having to juggle playing with his Eurosport punditry role.
O’Sullivan said: “This is like a bit of a hobby. Getting my cue out is a bit of a pleasure whereas before, when that’s all I had to do, I felt I was trapped in a prison. Now I feel like it’s a bit exciting and I treat it as a bit of fun.
“My proper job is my punditry and doing all my other bits – that’s my salary but this is a bit of a bonus now.”
Hours before the match, O’Sullivan tweeted that God told him to give up the sport, but the five-times world champion later had a positive response for his fans.
He said: “I have conversations with God and he said to me, ‘Jack snooker in mate, you’re better off as a pundit’ and I was like, ‘Hold on, we will have to have a proper conversation about that’.
“It’s not my last tournament until God puts his foot down, he is the boss and I don’t want to take liberties with him.”
O’Sullivan is no fan of the Barbican Centre’s four-table setup in York but was satisfied with his opening performance.
“I played all right, I wasn’t too sure what this guy was like – he looked good at the start but missed a couple of balls,” he said.
“It’s a bit of a weird setup so I’ll try not to get too serious about the tournament unless I can get to the two-table setup.”
Sunday night’s Northern Ireland Open winner, Mark King, was docked a frame after forgetting his cue following the interval and arriving back late as he crashed to a 6-2 first-round defeat against Sam Craigie.
Trailing 3-1 at the mid-session interval, King was not able to start at the allotted time, having gone back out of the arena to collect his cue, so was penalised a frame to put him further behind. He composed himself to produce the tournament’s highest break of 141 in the next frame, before losing the final two.
King tweeted after the match: “Ahh well not to be today, the better player won today and good luck to ya Sam, I’m off home for a little refresh for a week or so. b*CHAMPION.”
World No6 Shaun Murphy recovered from 3-1 down at the interval to beat Itaro Santos of Brazil 6-3, while three-times champion John Higgins progressed following a 6-3 win over Alex Borg of Malta.
The runner-up in 2015, Liang Wenbo, scored two century breaks in his 6-1 victory over Australian Kurt Dunham.