Rocket suffers shock reverse

DESPITE beating a hasty retreat following his surprise 4-1 defeat by Xiao Guadong at the PTC Snooker event in Killarney yesterday, Ronnie O’Sullivan’s recent comments about feeling ‘raped’ and ‘blackmailed’ into playing a lot of the World Snooker events at moment were a hot topic of conversation at the INEC.

Responding to the sense of feeling ‘blackmailed’ into playing PTC events, seven-times world champion Stephen Hendry said he agreed with O’Sullivan that the events were too ‘top heavy’ on ranking points. “I do think it’s great the fact that there are more tournaments for players to play in but I do think there are too many ranking points going with these tournaments considering how little money there is to win,” the Scot said.

He feels the sport is approaching a ‘crossroads’ in some respects. “We have got to get the ‘bums on the seats’ and if Ronnie can’t put ‘bums on seats’ no one will. We’ve 30 or 40 events this year which means there’s no shortage of snooker but while that’s fine for the younger players with no family or ties there are some players who don’t want to be travelling ‘here, there and everywhere’ every single week. But, as Ronnie said, we have to or else we’ll be punished heavily with the ranking situation,” Hendry said.