At present, the World Championship, the most important event of the year, is in full swing. On the stage of this worldwide snooker competition, there is a player who can be called the legend of today's snooker. He's O'Sullivan, nicknamed rocket, and he's on his way to his goal of a seventh World Championship title. However, O'Sullivan is in his 40s and a veteran who has reached the end of his career. One day, legends will also retire from the stage of the sport. So, in his mind, once he leaves the professional snooker, who among today's players around the world can become his successor and become the next legendary player? Recently, in an interview with the media, O'Sullivan unveiled this mystery and said the most ideal candidate in his heart. To be honest, this candidate surprised the fans a bit.
In the first round of this World Championship, veteran O'Sullivan showed a very good state. The tournament's second-seeded player's first-round opponent was david Gilbert, who led 6-3 in the first stage, although the second stage started unfavorably, losing two consecutive sets, but then, he won four consecutive sets, and also played the 1157th breaker of his career, and finally won the opponent by a large score of 10:5 to advance to the round of 16. This result was O'Sullivan's 26th career round of 16 at the World Championships and his 70th victory at Crucible, which tied billiards Emperor Hendry's winning record at Crucible. In the next game, his opponent will be another player, Mark Allen. No. 15 seed Mark Allen advanced to the round of 16 after eliminating Scott Donaldson 10-6, thus getting the chance to play O'Sullivan.
After winning the promotion, O'Sullivan, who was in a good mood, publicly expressed his views on his future successor to the media. Entering this season, if you ask which Chinese snooker player O'Sullivan has the closest relationship with, I believe that many fans will invariably say the same person's name, that is, The young Chinese player Zhao Xintong. Yes, since entering this season, O'Sullivan's relationship with Zhao Xintong has been very good.
Zhao Xintong is a relatively young player, and his previous fame was not very large. However, entering this season, Zhao Xintong's performance is very exciting compared to before. He first reached the final as a dark horse at the British Championship, one of the three snooker competitions, and finally won the championship. Later, he reached the final of the German Masters, another important ranking competition, and won the championship by a rare score of 9:0 in the final, defeating another Chinese player who entered the final, Yan Bingtao, the world's strongest post-00 player in snooker. Such results once made him rank first in the world rankings this season. It is precisely because of this performance that Zhao Xintong's status in the world snooker circle has risen greatly, and even has the feeling of replacing Ding Junhui as the first person in China's snooker today.
Zhao Xintong's style of playing is very similar to that of Rocket O'Sullivan, both are offensive players. Therefore, for Zhao Xintong, O'Sullivan is very fond of it. He has expressed his appreciation for him in public many times, and has personally guided Zhao Xintong, which is rare among active snooker players. Although some media have reported that the reason why O'Sullivan is so attentive to Zhao Xintong is because of their business cooperation. But in fact, even if there is commercial cooperation, if Zhao Xintong's strength is too poor, O'Sullivan will not be able to look up to Zhao Xintong.
And this time, during the World Championships, especially after Zhao Xintong defeated his opponent 10:2 in the first round to advance to the round of 16, O'Sullivan was more excited than he won. He happily said publicly: "I enjoy being with him and helping him as a player. I enjoyed watching his first round and he improved a lot. It was exciting, and I liked what he showed. "He's probably the only player I can help because he plays a lot like me and has a similar view of the game. He is a very strong learner. "I think even if he only played to his 80 per cent potential, he would have won 5 or 6 world titles. That's easy. ”
Not only that, O'Sullivan also said that Zhao Xintong was the successor in his mind. "Basically, once I'm gone, then I have to leave someone to do some damage, and he's that person," he says. "He's the guy who hit snooker, the guy who played what I wanted to see in this sport."
However, to be honest, O'Sullivan's choice of Zhao Xintong was still a bit of a surprise. After all, to reach O'Sullivan's height, Zhao Xintong still has a very long way to go. In today's snooker world, the level and achievements of players such as Robertson and Trump are more than Zhao Xintong. As for Zhao Xintong, although he has performed well so far this season, winning two championships. However, his performance in other competitions is not outstanding, and he has appeared in nine consecutive tournaments such as the Tour Championship, the European Masters, the Players Championship, the One-Time Limited Time Tournament, the Masters, the World Grand Prix, the Scottish Open, the Northern Ireland Tournament, and the British Open. Therefore, to meet the standards in O'Sullivan's heart, Zhao Xintong still has a long way to go. Of course, Zhao Xintong is only 25 years old at present, and there are still many opportunities to prove O'Sullivan's vision.