Rocket ponders snooker future

Ronnie O’Sullivan pondered how long he would stay in snooker after reaching the Embassy World Championship quarter-finals today – and perhaps he should look to Steve Davis for inspiration.

Defending champion O’Sullivan, who arrived in the Crucible Theatre with his head shaved for the last session of his match against Ali Carter, reeled off four consecutive frames to complete a 13-7 victory.

Then, largely unprompted, the famously enigmatic world number one launched into a lengthy, self-indulgent diatribe in which he claimed he would retire within a couple of years if he could not regain top form.

If O’Sullivan does carry out his threat and quit the game in his early 30s it will be a far cry from the way Davis, the dominant force during the 1980s when he captured six world titles, has gone about his career.

While nothing like the player he was and comfortably the oldest man in this year’s event, the ‘Nugget’ remains a fierce competitor and showed there is no substitute for experience with a 13-10 win over Michael Holt.