Ronnie O'Sullivan believes that Wu Yize, the newly crowned world snooker champion, is far from reaching his full potential and expects the 22-year-old to improve dramatically in the coming years. Wu secured the World Snooker Championship in spectacular fashion, defeating Shaun Murphy 18-17 in a thrilling Crucible final. His path to glory included a dramatic 17-16 semifinal victory over Mark Allen, along with wins against Hossein Vafaei, Mark Selby, and Lei Peifan.
This victory marks only the second ranking title of Wu's young career. O'Sullivan, a seven-time world champion, has acted as something of a mentor to the Chinese star, even sending him text messages with advice during the final in Sheffield. The Rocket warns Wu's rivals that the current Crucible king is just getting started and will only become a more formidable player.
O'Sullivan's Praise for Wu Yize
'Wu Yize is an unbelievable talent, an incredible player,' O'Sullivan told CGTN. 'He still can improve so much more as a player. Imagine how good he can possibly be. He's an amazing talent, amazing player now and he's so young, so early in his career. He's just going to get better and better.'
O'Sullivan also commented on Zhao Xintong, who became China's first world champion the previous year. O'Sullivan has worked with Zhao on the practice table in the past. 'Zhao Xintong is an amazing player, he's always been my favourite player out of all the Chinese players, this kid is very, very special,' he said. 'To see him win a World Championship last year was fantastic, to see Wu Yize win the World Championship this year is great. We've got two young great Chinese players having this rivalry and there's many more young Chinese players coming through.'
O'Sullivan's Mentorship Role
O'Sullivan explained his motivation for mentoring young talents: 'When I see great talent and they don't win the tournaments I think they should win, that's why I like to speak to them. You can try this, try that, it will help you become a winner. I didn't want to see this great talent not witnessed by the whole world. I didn't tell them much, maybe just a little bit, but sometimes just a little bit is all you need.'
Future in Chinese 8-Ball Pool
O'Sullivan has been in China playing Chinese 8-ball pool, a cue sport variant popular in the country. He lost in the last 32 of the Huacai Billiards World Open in Deqing, where the winner earned $735,000 (£550,000). The 50-year-old is considering a future switch from snooker to Chinese 8-ball full time.
'At the moment I'm still playing snooker, I'm enjoying my snooker,' he said. 'So I'll do maybe three or four years of that and then maybe when I'm 54-55, maybe a little bit too old to play snooker, I can come over here, play some Chinese pool, have some fun, relax. That was my thinking, something I can do full time in four or five years' time.'
He emphasized the difficulty of juggling both disciplines: 'You can't play snooker and try and play pool. Impossible. If I decide to play pool full-time, I'd never play snooker again. You can't do both, you can only be very good at one. At the moment I'm just coming to see what it's like. Tournament's great, the sponsor's good, the players are great, the environment's great, okay great. It's something to look forward to in three or four years' time. But you have to just focus on one.'
