Ronnie O’Sullivan prefers China snooker events to UK as ‘promoters do not abuse you’

Snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan told fellow legend Stephen Hendry during an Instagram Live on Sunday that his fans can expect to see him play in more tournaments in China.

The Englishman bemoaned the demands placed on players by UK promoters and said that was the reason he pulled out of January’s Masters.

“It wasn’t playing in the Masters, it was all the stuff that goes with it,” O'Sullivan said about pulling out of the tournament. "‘There’s the press and the media, with Eurosport and BBC. After each match you have to do six or seven interviews.

“After last year’s semi-final they kept me there for three hours doing interviews for the next day’s match. I went, ‘You know what, I don’t really want it that bad, I just want to play in the tournaments I enjoy’.”

Chinese promoters, by contrast, “don't abuse you”, according to “The Rocket”.

“I know it’s a bit of a hassle getting there,” the 44-year-old said of travelling to China. “The flight and travelling, but once you get there, they look after you fantastically well. You might do one interview after the match, which is fine, but they do not abuse you.

When will Chinese snooker players be in the frame for biggest prizes?

“They want to work with you. I love playing in China. Shanghai is fantastic, they have proper promoters out there, they know what they’re doing.

“When you work with proper promoters, they want to look after you. You look forward to seeing them because they’re good fun and it’s going to be a good week.

He also told Hendry of his preferred destinations in China, and unsurprisingly Shanghai was top of the list – O’Sullivan won his fourth Shanghai Masters last September, beating Shaun Murphy to the US$246,000 winner’s cheque.

“I prefer Shanghai as a place, it’s a fantastic place, but Beijing’s great,” he said. “The only place I didn’t like going to in China was Yushan [where the World Open was held]. The people were great, it was just a nightmare to get to so I don’t think I’d be going back there. I’m not sure I’d go there again unless they got their chequebook out.”

The 2019-20 snooker season has been put on pause by the coronavirus pandemic, with no news on when tournaments will resume in China.

One concern for any rescheduled calendar will be foreigners being allowed into China and then possible quarantine protocols before they can play. That could see a string of China-based tournaments played together, a possibility that World Snooker’s Barry Hearn discussed with the UK’s Metro newspaper last month.