Ronnie O’Sullivan banks £25k in new tournament and backs format for breakaway tour

Ronnie O’Sullivan believes ’70 per cent’ of players would be tempted to join a breakaway tour that follows the Snooker 900 format.

‘The Rocket’ was the victor at this year’s Global Championship of Snooker 900 thanks to a 10-5 win over Belgian cueist Luca Brecel.

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Snooker 900, the brainchild of World Seniors Snooker chairman Jason Francis, represents a far quicker format, as frames are played within 15 minutes along with a 20-second shot clock.

Along with taking out the title, O’Sullivan pocketed a cool £25,000 for his troubles while Brecel took home a £10,000 runner-up prize.

But that prize pot could increase should a Snooker 900 breakaway tour get off the ground.

O’Sullivan: Snooker 900 is the ‘sweet spot’

Should that ever happen, O’Sullivan believes the format ‘will be here forever’.

“I just love this format,” O’Sullivan said on Pluto TV’s broadcast.

“If Jason can make a tour, I think if you asked 128 players, I reckon 70 per cent of them would say we would rather play under this format.

“We’ve played a lot of snooker today, but we’re not sitting there till 1 or 2 in the morning. We’re not playing a session, thinking, ‘what time will we get something to eat?’ We know where we are.

“We just love playing, but at some point, you’ve got to know when you’re clocking in and off, you know.

“Jason’s come up with an amazing format and I just think he’s hit the sweet spot with snooker, really. If Jason gets some sort of tour going, some backing or whatever, I’m sure this will be here forever.”

Brecel, the 2023 world champion, was equally supportive of bringing in more Snooker 900 events.

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“I really like this and I would love to be more of them,” Brecel said.

“And I think many players would love to be involved in these kind of tournaments.

“You also can see, I mean, it’s not like a World Championship, it’s not the prize money or the ranking points, but you can see the players, all of them are really, really focused all the way through.

“The intensity with Ronnie and me was the same as in the UK Championship final, for example. So that just shows you how special this is.”

Life’s a Brece

Although it was not to be for Brecel in the Global Championship final, O’Sullivan believes the Belgian can still return to the levels that propelled him to his maiden world championship.

“I know he hasn’t been around for two or three years, we’ve both struggled a bit, haven’t played a lot,” O’Sullivan said.

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“But for me, he’s a world-class player.

“He’s the best player to watch, you can go back to Alex Higgins, Jimmy White, for me, he’s the best I’ve played. I love the way he plays. He gets through the ball, he plays shots. He’s just unbelievable.

“If he wants to apply himself, he’ll probably be world champion again and up there.”