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Lars Hamer

English snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan says he is “blown away” every time he visits China, a country he calls “the greatest place on Earth”.
Days after taking up Hong Kong residency, the seven-time world champion is in Nanjing this week for the International Championship.
A 6-2 win over He Guoqiang got him into the third round on Monday, before he suffered a shock defeat in the last 32 on Tuesday, losing 6-4 to rising Chinese star Pang Junxu.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest snooker players in history, O’Sullivan was last week granted residency under the city’s Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, and called it “a great place to live”.
“I always tell people you have to come to China. For me, it’s the greatest place on Earth,” he told a World Snooker Tour interview on Monday.
“I would just recommend anybody to just come to China. It blows me away. Every city I come to in China … it’s like you’re in another world.
“It’s the best place in the world. There is no other place like China. Every city just has something amazing about it and Nanjing has a lot of history.”
The 48-year-old, who has lost to He twice this season, lost the opening frame on Monday but then hit breaks of breaks of 73, 87, 83 and 70 to secure the victory.
However, 24-year-old Pang turned in an impressive performance to beat O’Sullivan on Tuesday, with 85, 73 and a final-frame 123 to end it.
“For me, it was a big match, and I had to just block out that I lost the previous two and just try and play my game,” he said.
O’Sullivan was also full of praise for his Chinese counterparts too, saying they were “very technically good”.
“I wish I had their game, you know. I just have a bit of nous, I’m a bit street wise, you know, it gets me through, it’s got me through most of my career,” O’Sullivan said.
“But I’d love to have probably another 80 other players’ technique and the way they pot balls – they’re unbelievable, I can’t pot like them. I don’t have the power that they have.
“If I had some of their technique and correction, I could probably go unbeaten for the whole of my life.”
However, despite wishing he had the attributes of some of his Chinese opponents, O’Sullivan claimed he ticks “every box” as a sportsman.
“I get very good support wherever I go all over the world. I think that’s just because I’ve been playing the game for so long now, 32 years; I’ve won a lot of big titles,” he said.
“I think that’s what people like, to win the big tournaments, hold all the records, as well as my style of play. I’ve managed to entertain the fans.
“So really, if you asked 100 snooker fans whom they’d want to watch, probably the majority of them would say me because I kind of tick pretty much every box there is to tick as a sportsman.”


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Days after the seven-time world champion took Hong Kong residency, O’Sullivan is in Nanjing and visiting a place that ‘blows me away’


Days after the seven-time world champion took Hong Kong residency, O’Sullivan is in Nanjing and visiting a place that ‘blows me away’.


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Hong Kong Masters (snooker)

Ronnie O'Sullivan

Ronnie O’Sullivan continues Chinese love affair, calls country ‘greatest place on Earth’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Days after the seven-time world champion took Hong Kong residency, O’Sullivan is in Nanjing and visiting a place that ‘blows me away’

Days after the seven-time world champion took Hong Kong residency, O’Sullivan is in Nanjing and visiting a place that ‘blows me away’