“If I’m going to play like that, it’s pretty pointless,” said Ronnie O’Sullivan upon leaving the Crucible on Friday night and heading straight for the biggest crossroads of his life.
After gaining Hong Kong residency last year, and with the house he shared with Laila Rouass up for sale, he now intends to move to the Middle East where he will be close to the Saudi Arabian snooker academy established last year in his name. One snooker insider described the deal which Eddie Hearn helped broker with Saudi Arabian minister Turki Alalshikh as “like the pension of all time” for O’Sullivan.